Q, or to give it it’s full title- The 8 Exciting Excapades Of Mr Q, The Big Thing, Also Known As Quaker Coat Al, King Of The Mormans, As He Chases Shaft, Kwai Chang, And Michael Moriarty- is basically just a remake of Jaws, but set in space. It has all the same scenes from that movie- a child being mauled to death as he takes his moon buggy for a brief spin; a dead man’s head floating by the spaceship’s port hole, Shaft having his legs bitten off as Q eats through the bottom of the ship. Heck, it even ‘borrows’ some of the famous lines- ‘We’re gonna need a bigger rocket’, ‘we’re gonna need a bigger ship’, ‘Monster! (instead of shark!)’, and ‘Hi’. It is suffice it to say that the famous George Lucas theme tune of the approaching evil is rogued too. While the Jaws music goes like this- Duh duh. Duh duh. Du du du du duh da du du, duh da du du’ and so on, the music in Q goes like this- ‘Duh duh. Duh duh. Du du du du duh da du du, duh da du du’. If that ain’t a slice of the old Rip Off Magee, then I don’t know what is boy!
Anyways, I’m sure if you’ve seen Jaws (or it’s other remake, King Qwong) you’ll know the basic storyboard. Humans have been living on the moon for a few weeks now, but for some reason they are all trapped in the 80s, or possibly the 60s. Drilling for precious moon oil has awoken an ancient beast known as Qod (basically God with a Q) and he ain’t happy! He ain’t happy, but he ain’t not hungry! Q is a giant dragaon type feature, roughly the size of a large squirrel, and he can fly. He can’t breath fire, but he ain’t not hungry! He feasts on space tramps and rocks and takes off towards the main city- Earth Part Two. Soon it is a race against time for the spacemen to work together and bring down this awesome foe.
I like the graphics in this film- they are some of the best I have ever scene, and I like the fact that they filmed on the moon, with Neil Armstrong’s permission. There is plenty of gore and killings, and the excitements are kept high on the scale- about 340lbs worth, give or take. What the film really needed was a big monster fight- they should have dug up another alien and had a smackdown rumble fest where they both smelled what the other had cookin’. This is a lovely piece of filming, Michael Douglas should be proud.
Best Scene: Patrick Moore’s cameo. He is discussing the possibility of life on other planets at the start of the show, then it cuts to him going to his dressing room. Later when his director goes to pick him up for his next shoot, and spins his chair round he is dead and Q has crawled out of his eye! You know which one.
The Spac Hole 