From what I could tell, the only reason Paul’s father was in danger was because Paul went back to the forest and then ran off. So if Paul had stayed in school, nothing would have happened to his father at all. Thus, my conclusion is that Bigfoot was really the villain trying to make Paul an orphan.
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Eh, I find it more reminiscent of Friday the 13th and its ilk. It even has a scene where the slasher attacks a nubile female who is effectively nude (towels are pretty easy to rip off).
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TFW when you aim for Alien…scale down to E.T. but don’t even have the budget of Friday The 13th…
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My thoughts exactly. Bigfoot is really more of a sociopath in the film.
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What if he never tried to kill him with a forklift?
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IMO…
Manos is a terrible movie, but it has an awesome ending.
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It actually is, isn’t it - very TZ sans all the proper craftmanship.
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This inspires me to wonder how the backstory of such movies influences our opinions. For instance, what if Manos was, say, Martin Scorsese’s early attempt at a film when he was a kid? Versus a fertilizer salesman’s best effort making a movie on a bet?
Would its place in cinema history be different?
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I thought the movie made it clear at the end. They were taking over the Earth because humanity was on the verge of discovering a new technology that could, if turned into a weapon and used recklessly for war, destroy all life. Given the history of our species, it was clear humanity needed to be stopped. It’s like a lot of sci-fi movies of its time, advocating for nuclear disarmament.
Then, as we saw at the end, a different family would have been lured in.
Cracked had a contest for movie plots that could have been solved by text message. They did another article a while back about how phones are overpowered and movie writers have to keep finding reasons the characters can’t just use their phones to solve everything, but I can’t seem to find it.
Yup. We’ve discussed this elsewhere, and I still agree with you, Teri. (BTW, good to see you. 
) Paul did nothing in that movie except disobey people and cause more trouble. Maybe maybe there’s a Sliding Doors version where Paul doesn’t show up and his dad gets eaten by a tiger or shot by a careless sociopathic game hunter who claims to be a US Marshal. But the only time in the movie where we see Dad in danger is when he gets caught in the cave-in chasing after Paul, and the only thing Paul does to help him is call Bigfoot to come back and move the rocks. Which Bigfoot could have done himself if he had the mystical foresight to know days in advance that something like that was going to happen.
Then we’d have missed an excellent song and I wouldn’t have my name.
But, really, the whole Salem Witch test was ill-conceived. “If I’m right, you have super strength and this attempt to kill you won’t work. If I’m wrong, I’ll have killed an innocent man. It’s perfect!” And then Captain Boozehound shows up and points out that there are other humans who live on higher gravity worlds and therefore have super strength, so it doesn’t actually prove anything anyway.
The twist of him becoming the new Master is probably the most clever (if not exactly the most original) thing in the movie. But the daughter becoming one of the Master’s wives is just the worst kind of irredeemable wrong.
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What if Johnny DID care?
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Never mind that…what if THERE WAS a monster in Monster A-Go-Go and it was Mo Udall?
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I figured I had to come over here, too. 
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Harsh but fair.
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I think that Hollywood is missing some possible remakes–done better, fix the plot holes, get good actors, sets, and now claymation. . .no, I mean, CGI. I want a good version of Mole People and Terror from the Year 5,000! Did I forget better wardrobe/costume? But I want Mole People to look like the original Mole People.
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They do too riff masterpieces. Just look at… um, maybe… no… I’ll get back to you…
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It wouldn’t matter if they realized it or not. Their assumption, rightly or wrongly, was that audiences wouldn’t want to see the White dude in a secondary role. Also that distributors wouldn’t touch the film if it were done that way.
Thank Heaven this sort of narrow-minded thinking is archaic and forgotten now. (Yeah, right.)
Wait…what? Who’re we talking about?
Relating to the first post which posits (and not for the first time) that the High Priest of Onions was the real hero of Puma Man. 
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Ahh. I think this is the first time it ever occurred to me that Pumaman was a White dude.
I suspect the calculus here was more “Let’s make it look like an American film,” just because that seems to have been the calculus for ALL low-budget Italian cinema, but the point carries through another layer of abstraction. (Leading roles for Amerinds in American movies were guys like, uh, Tom Loughlin. 
)
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What if the villains in Prince of Space weren’t inept and had weapons that could harm/kill their enemy?
What if the titular giants in Village of the Giants set their goals higher?
What if Ed Wood took up interpretative dance instead of filmmaking?
What if Universal went with a more charismatic/talented actor than John Agar?
What if Sid Melton found his calling in selling Chevys?
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