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8 out of 11 people found the following review useful:
Look it's a lady Remington …. Fakey, 28 June 2006
1/10
Author: Celluloid_Rehab (lelnu@yahoo.com) from Hell's Kitchen, NYC

Somewhere in space, where no one can hear you scream, the Cosmos 1 is heading off to somewhere else. The crew have been on this 6 month mission. They are an advanced space faring race with their futuristic lockers and guitar-looking radar wall screen and the tendency to do space/time conversion formulas. Somewhere else another space vessel, Cosmos 3, has problems. The ship and crew are being held hostage by Centaurians (think of Klingons without the brown paint and sash, but all Asian) and because of it they crash onto a "prehistoric" planet.

The commander of Cosmos 1, Admiral King (played by the walking corpse of the late Wendell Corey), disobeys orders and goes on a rescue mission to Solaris.

3 months later .....

Cosmos 1 arrives at the planet, where 18 years have gone by. A rescue party is sent down, lead by Commander "I don't like Centaurians" Scott with Dr. Farrell (played by the incomparable John Agar), Lt."Why won't he shut up" Bradley, Stuart Margolin as the Chief and some nobody who's expendable (think of the red shirt security officers from the original Star Trek series). At the same time, Linda (Irene Tsu) escapes to the planet to stretch her legs.

On the "prehistoric" planet below, they find the crash site and the lone survivor; a Centaurian named Tang (Robert Ito). The rest of the movie is just a "stew" containing paper machete sets, stock footage of an iguana, a rubber iguana on fire, a sock-like jumping tree snake, a hopping spider plush toy, animal cruelty towards a chimpanzee (Teeko), stock footage, the admiral's slurred confused alcoholic rants and a trio of cavemen brutes. We top this with scenes upon scenes of the lecherous, chauvinistic, sexual harassing, karate practicing Lt. Bradley (who never shuts up). Visualize the Watney Smith character from Outlaw of Gor .... CABOT !!

Though the budget of the movie (and by proxy the intelligence of the write/director) was low, the movie still manages to be infused with a thought provoking plot about race relations, cultural differences, not being understood, being different, going through turmoil and finding a resolution. As a rule, you probably won't need more than 5 or 6 shots of SoCo to be able to see this.

You will probably recognize some of the actors. They had long and fulfilling careers, but you would not have bet on that after seeing this movie. Riveting performances like "crossing the log when we could go around or jump over the liquid" scene and Irene Tsu's unforgettable banana scene. This scene is both erotic, inappropriate and confusing (the skin of the banana ,and by proxy the banana itself, is bite-proof, yet not peel proof). Robert Ito's "hopping" interpretation of Tang will haunt me for the rest of my days.

I highly recommend this movie if you are not alone, not on any sleep inducing medication nor in possession of a dissection kit and are watching the MST3k version of this movie. In my final thoughts I noticed a similarity between this movie and another MST alumni, The Clonus Horror. Now to a bit of SAT deja vu :

The Clonus Horror is to The Island as The Women of the Prehistoric Planet is to ….

a) Star Trek

b) Star Wars

c) None of the above

d) Battlestar Galactica

.... for those even remotely interested the answer will be in my next review.

-Celluloid Rehab

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8 out of 11 people found the following review useful:
There's no women or prehistory, but there is a planet!, 10 March 2005
1/10
Author: squeaks-2 from United States

With a title like "Women of the Prehistoric Planet" I envisioned a Lost World type movie in which scantily-clad amazonian beauties ride dinosaurs, fight against half-animal savages and a harsh, unforgiving environment. But with only one women, some forced perspective lizards that com-bust on impact, and a bunch of white guys straight out of the U.S. Navy, one can only wonder what the creators of this movie were thinking when they came up with the title.

To be fair, there are some legitimate scientific ideas that are dealt with in the movie, even if the writers don't understand how they really work. For example, the writers were correct in saying that when you travel near the speed of light time slows down, so that a three week journey for the astronauts aboard the spaceship is perceived by those on the planet as taking eighteen years. However, the perception of the people down on the planet has nothing to do with the speed of the planet's rotation but the way in which the planet's matter distorts the space time continuum.

The real plot of this movie is that a spaceship (Cosmos III) is hijacked by the primitive Centurions (a.k.a., non-white people) who probably perform menial domestic services for the crew aboard the spaceship. The ship crash lands on an unexplored planet with only a few survivors. Another ship in the vicinity (Cosmos IV?), moving at nearly the speed of light, travels to rescue the survivors (a three week journey on the spaceship, but an eighteen year wait on the planet). Once on the ground a group of idiots looking like U.S. Navy officers are dispatched to find the crash site. Meanwhile, a beautiful Centurion girl (the ultra-sexy Irene Tsu as Linda) wanders off and encounters a mysterious stranger named Tang who is also a Centurion. Obviously, he's the son of the survivors of the crash eighteen years earlier.

The story of Linda and Tang is probably the most interesting aspect of this movie. Through their adventures together they fall in love but must still deal with the tension of growing up in two very different environments. The other aspect of the plot has to do with clumsy idiots falling off logs into acid pools and shooting at anything that moves with their ultra high tech .44 pistols. The ending of this movie will surprise no one.

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7 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
I have problems with this film's title!, 7 April 1999
1/10
Author: anonymous

There's only one woman featured prominently in this movie...and she isn't from the prehistoric planet. What a rip-off!

There are a couple of hokey effects but you'll want to hit the fast-forward button to see them. The majority of this film, like so many bad sci-fi movies of the 50's and 60's, is extended walking sequences! No one ever imagined that a prehistoric planet would be this boring. Never did a film need process shots of alligators and lizards more. Or women, for that matter!

However, it is worth noting that this is the movie that started the popular "Hi-Keeba!!" catch phrase on MST3K.

There's also twist ending in this movie that the average viewer will be able to spot about 2 minutes into the film. John Agar's in this film, too. 'Nuff said.

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8 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
How could anyone not love this?, 14 August 2001
Author: rulerattray

The chance to comment on this film(?) finally made me register.

I saw this late at night and watched with delight, wondering just how bad it could get. That was thirty years ago, so if you're looking for accurate scene descriptions and dialogue quotes, don't expect them here. But here's my hazy, loving memories.

1. Wendell Corey, playing the captain of the space ship, half plastered and obviously paying off a bet with a one afternoon performance, standing in front of a blank wall with a porthole in it while someone on the other side waves a sparkler.

Corey: "Looksh like another meteor shtorm..."

2. The spaceship crashing in the swamp... The miniature they used must hve been about the size of a pencil stub, since it went "bloop" and tossed up one single drop of water which on that scale would have been considerably bigger than a bungalow.

3. The prehistoric woman herself, a dark, hirsute beauty, wearing a bearskin teddy and looking hopefully at the director for direction after each line of dialogue.

4. One set, obviously built while they still had twenty seven dollars to burn, that consisted of a cave full of giant toadstools and human skeletons. After sneaking around outside for what seems to be several days, a patrol from the spaceship enters.

The patrol leader's perplexed comment: "There's something suspicious about this place..."

That's where I lost it completely and rolled around on the floor.

Well, you had to be there.

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2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
It's OK, BUT!!!, 12 July 2000
Author: dls-3 from Toronto, Canada

I must be used to the STAR TREK series plus its affiliated spinoffs plus CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND or maybe ET etc, but with this film, I have problems.

There really is no chemistry between the actors. They speak to one another, but there is no comraderie. Everybody is put into his or her little box and that is where they stay.

The only good things about this movie, as far as I feel are Tang (Robert Ito in pre-QUINCY days) and Irene Tsu. I actually felt that they really cared for each other. There was the chemistry that was missing from the rest of the movie.

I also liked Lt. Bradley (Paul Gilbert). Why would they have such a clown in the midst of a bunch of zombies. His energies were wasted.

The ending caught me off guard. I won't divulge it, but I'm going to look at this movie again tonight to see if I can pick up any clues as to what was revealed at end time of this movie.

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3 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Terrible but fascinating., 2 April 2005
5/10
Author: foxbrick-1 from United States

And it's a real pity that it was in the first national, Comedy Channel (pre-Comedy Central) season of MST3K (before Josh Weinstein left to work on THE SIMPSONS, and before Mike Nelson signed on as a utility actor), so it presumably won't be reissued on home video in their version, while my off-cable VHS tape is on its last legs. The cast makes the film, as several have noted here, as does the twist ending you know M. Shyamalan is waiting to spring on us again any film now...I won't reveal it, but its probably the oldest cliché in bad written SF, so ridiculously hack that even the usually shameless film industry hasn't bothered with it much over the decades.

However, quite aside from seeing Stuart Margolin beginning his long, deft, typecast career, and Robert Ito with surely no inkling of his similarly long television career to come, for this viewer, the female cast, led in this regard by Irene Tsu and Merry Anders, is remarkably lovely. Arthur C. Pierce, truly an undersung contributor to the Whacked tradition of film-making, provided us with so much in his few mid-'60s features. It's a pity we haven't given him more attention...or, perhaps, not. But these are wonderfully weird (not least in their utter lack of realization of how schlock they are), and often hard to find, films.

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3 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Great movie, 20 November 2006
8/10
Author: DJAkin (donjakin@yahoo.com) from AZ

I watched this movie on a Monday night cuz nothing was on. In fact, I bought this movie. It's actually really good. It's about these astronauts who travel through space and the time shifting is off from real time. The main guys are kind of like scientists and there are a few women on this ship also. They are going to a planet that has dinosaurs and lakes made of acid. Very strange huh? Well some cavemen eventually torment the folks on this planet and there is an engineer who is really into doing stand up comedy in the middle of an expedition. He just talks and talks and at one point he does a FLIP for no reason. There is a Chinese man named TANG who is like ADAM and a woman named LINDA who is like Eve. As the astronauts leave, they look behind at the planet and name it Earth. It was a goosebump moment for sure!

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Women?, 27 September 2009
6/10
Author: bensonmum2 from Tennessee

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I'm sure some people will see my rating and think I've gone off the deep end on this one. Women of the Prehistoric World is another of those movies that gets points from me for entertainment value regardless of how bad it really is. And it's one of those cases where I can't really put my finger on what it is I like about it, I just know I had a good time watching the film. Because like most everyone else, I can see all the faults – bad special effects, a misleading title, ridiculous dialogue, annoying characters, cheap sets, poorly choreographed fight scenes, and (as someone else on IMDb has already rightly pointed out) almost no chemistry among the characters. Still, I found something in Women of the Prehistoric World that worked for me. A few examples:

- I enjoyed the scientific babble about space travel and time. I'm certainly no scientist, but it had an air of truth to it (at least the lines were delivered in an earnest enough manner that I bought it). The whole "three months in space equates to 18 years on the planet" bit is an interesting idea.

- I got a big kick out of the ending. I'm not going to give it away, but as cheap as it was, it worked on me. Caught me completely off guard.

- Despite the lack of a feeling of comrade between most of the characters, I still enjoyed many of the cast members. I don't know how many Wendell Corey fans there are out there, but I always like seeing him – slurred delivery and all. John Agar might not do much, but he's still a welcome face. Irene Tsu – Wow! Finally, Robert Ito probably gives the best performance of the bunch. I never realized how athletic looking he was. A far cry from his days on Quincy.

- As much as I hate the expression, maybe it's a case of a movie being "so bad, it's good". I do realize that a lot of the entertainment I found in the film was most likely unintentional. For example, I doubt that the set used for the spaceship crash was supposed to make me laugh, but it did. Okay, maybe I didn't laugh out loud, but it did bring a big fat smile to my face. And that's worth something, huh?

Most people who have seen or will see Women of the Prehistoric World won't enjoy it as much as I did, but that's okay. I feel comfortable with my 6/10 rating.

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2 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
It's a bad movie, but it tries REAL hard to be good..., 20 January 2007
5/10
Author: mahatmarandy from Newport Nohwere, Florida

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

There's a lot of negative things to say about this movie, which the authors of the reviews prior to mine have already done to death, and I'm not really going to argue with them: this is a badly made, lethargically written film. It's a textbook B-movie. However, unlike virtually every other low-to-no budget Science Fiction film I've ever seen, this one actually tries to work some actual "Science" into the fiction, and for that I give them high marks for trying, even if the rest of the flick completely undercuts the interesting time dilation aspect of the film.

Here's the deal: A flotilla of starships have been on the planet "Centaurus" for some time, and are heading back to their homeworld again, launched in six-month intervals. There's a human civilization (Composed of Asians) on Centaurus that has fallen on hard times, and appears to have been colonized by the Caucasians. En rout back home, some Centaurans rebel on one of the ships, and it goes off course, eventually crash landing on the heretofore uncharted planet "Solaris 3". The flagship of the flotilla decides to go back to look for survivors, and eventually meet up with the child of the survivors of the crash.

Here's the cool stuff: 1) They point out in great detail that they're traveling near light speed, and hence time is passing slower for them aboard ship than it is back on their homeworld. The starship's helmsman points out that by the time they get home again, his brother will be 32 years older than him. It only takes the rescue ship three weeks to get to Solaris 3 in subjective (Shipboard) time, but objectively, on the planet 18 years have passed. How freakin' cool is that? Come on, after a lifetime of watching lousy SF films where interstellar flight is as easy as hopping an airplane to Reno, you have to admit one which actually deals with Einsteinian Relativity is pretty sweet! It's a very cool idea to have someone look at a functional ship he just saw six months before, and yet it's derelict wreck that's been sitting in a jungle for 18 years. What's that? You find relativity confusing? There there, sparky, that's OK. Why don't you go back to watching Star Trek and leave the science fiction to the big boys, OK? That's a good boy... 2) The race relations aspect of the movie is pretty neat, too: the astronauts are all Caucasians, the Centaurians are all Asians, and neither side really trusts the other. Some of the Caucasians don't even consider the Asians to be human, despite the fact that they obviously are. Again, in an age when all SF postulates a future where all races live together in a spirit of peaceful unity, it's kind of charming to see a movie that dwells on how hard it can be to attain that kind of unity. 3) This movie actually goes out of it's way to imply a larger history than we actually see on screen, which is pretty clever. The Admiral believes (According to dialog in the film) that humanity established interstellar travel millenia ago, and then lost it for whatever reason. The Centaurans are the descendants of human colonists that adapted to the conditions of the planet Centaurus over scores of thousands of years, which is why they look different than the spacefaring humans who found them. 4) Irene Tsu is just smokin' hot in this movie, seriously. It doesn't hurt that her cave-girl sarong is slit up the leg all the way to her waist, but even without that she'd still be just..wow. I remember seeing this movie for the first time when I was 10 (On Dr. Paul Bearer's "Creature Feature" show) and getting strangely attentive whenever she'd come on screen and eat a banana or kick her legs when being carried off. I was only 10, mind you, I had no idea what it was about her that was affecting me so, I just knew that I felt pleasantly happy whenever she was on screen. 5) The final twist of the movie actually came as a big shock to me. Granted, I was ten, but it does kind of come out of nowhere, and it is sort of neat.

To conclude, I'm not saying this is a good movie because it certainly ain't. I *am* saying that it tried really hard, that it's got more interesting ideas than an entire season of Next Generation, or the entire series run of Seaquest (Not that that's hard in either case), it actually tried to say something about race relations, and while it unquestionably failed artistically, I have to admire it for tackling the big questions when so few more professional productions would even take the chance admitting the questions exist.

Probably the MST3K version of this film is the best way to watch it, though, because it is deadly dull, and Joel and the 'Bots really do liven it up quite a bit.

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2 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
This film de-evolved me, 2 November 2000
4/10
Author: blazing_l from Queens, NY

Wow. A very cheesy space flick with corny humor to boot.

Apparently, Centaurions aren't feeling good about being mistreated, there's a mutiny, nice model ship crash and the film mixes into a caveman/futuristic/love story. I was hoping for Wendell Corey's demise, but it doesn't happen (rats). The hotty Linda meets a guy named Tang. That's mostly all I can recall or all I want to. Do not reveal the ending of Biblical proportions!

Loved the space age weapons...I think they were 38 calibers. What a vision to see a future with no lasers or disintegrators!

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