With the world still in the grips of ‘Star Wars’ fever, I thought we’d take a glance at another great science fiction movie made in the same era for Throwback Thursday. The movie? Why, ‘The Cat from Outer Space’, of course.
Sometimes we forget that Disney has had a long history of doing live-action movies, such as ‘The Ugly Dachsund’ and ‘Escape from Witch Mountain’ amongst all the animated princess. Among those more forgotten ones is ‘The Cat from Outer Space”, a classic family movie about talking cat just trying to get back to his home planet.
The premise is simple. An alien cat crashes on Earth, and has to repair his ship by a deadline before the Mothership leaves the solar system. Armed with a collar that enhances his telekenetic and telepathic powers, the cat befriends Frank, an astrophysicist whose ideas are considered wacky by his scientist pals.
Little do these people know that spaceship they found is being driven by an intergalactic feline. Frank’s ideas about energy and propulsion aren’t crazy now, are they?
The movie is very straight forward. Man finds cat, cat finds ship, man uses cat to help woo a girl, man and cat need to repair previously mentioned ship to leave while being hindered by spies and trying to hide the cat’s powers from everyone. As simple as that seems, it has a wealth of humor and earnestness that makes it immediately endearing even watching more than 30 years later.
Frankly, I can’t really put into words how adorable this movie is other than I think we should agitating for a remake. After all, ‘Escape from Witch Mountain’ got one! That’s crazy alien fun. At the very least, there could be special effects beyond poorly done green screens, and freeze frames. Though I’m not sure how they’ll ever get a cat to behave as well as the original cat. Aren’t they supposed to be nigh-untrainable?
However, if there isn’t a remake, this is definitely a good science fiction movie for you quirky collectors out there. And if you don’t believe me, just check out the trailer. Feel the cute, and tell me this doesn’t belong on your shelves. I dare you:
