Cyborg 2087

Often dismissed as a "quickie" movie using a great deal of television elements, "Cyborg 2087" is a prime example of what Hollywood was trying to do between the late fifties and mid-sixties: get people (especially the kids) away from the television set and back into the movie theaters. This film tried (sometimes successfully) to combine two popular genres of t.v. at the time; westerns and science fiction. Half-human robots, having a "shoot out" in a western town using ray guns to rescue the girl (played by a former "Mouseketeer", no less). Listen for the Paul Dunlap soundtrack, which should be familiar -- it was used for several t.v. shows, movies, and even Hanna Barbara cartoons! Also, check out the "hip lingo" used by the teens.The sad part is to see classically-trained actor Michael Rennie trying to make a living wearing a silver spacesuit after being typecast as a "sci-fi guy" in "The Day The Earth Stood Still".

A cyborg from the future is sent back to the 1960s.

60s Outer Limits, 60s The Invaders and 60s Irwin Allen all rolled into one!

The plot has shades of a couple of Limits episodes, the lack of fancy hardware gives it a touch of QM's The Invaders and the general presentation/casting reminds me of Irwin Allen.

Michael Rennie is here, but don't expect The Day The Earth Stood Still 2 - you will not get that!

The DVD picture quality is fine and, despite some slow moments, I generally had a ball with Cyborg 2087. However, I viewed it as a blast of the 60s, younger viewers who only want science fiction thrills might find it all a bit too old school?

Once again, Michael Rennie dons a tin-foil suit to come and warn mankind to amend it's ways. This time, though, he is a cyborg called "Garth 7" sent back from the year 2087 to try and stop an evolutionary process that will rob us all of our ability to think for ourselves. He manages to ally with "Dr. Mason" (Karen Steele) but pretty soon they are aware that the government they wish to thwart has also sent agents back and so not just time, but other folks from the future are against them too. This is cheap and cheerful, pedestrianly written, afternoon fodder that is very light on science or characterisations. Rennie looks like he maybe only did the one filming day, such is the truncated nature of the editing - and the special effects (his bio-implants, especially) are not up to very much, either. Oddly enough, it might have looked better in black and white, somehow the colour just makes it look even more sloppily thrown together. Potentially, an interesting take on a well used idea, but sadly it offers little we haven't seen before and the star is well past his best.

I saw this flick as a 10:15 pm, Sat. night presentation on a local Chicago TV station. It was presented as a World Premier movie, not just a television premier. This was a minor trend in the mid/late 1960s TV world, preceding made for cable stuff. (A technology of the future.) It may have been regional, but, I recall several movies of the ilk. Probably, theatrical films that were deemed not worthy of standard distribution. Sold to TV as part of standard film 'packages'. Other titles include Dimension 5 with Jeffrey Hunter, and, a few that I can't recall. Anyway, this is not a review, complaint, or thanks. Just some info.

The term, cyborg, meaning cybernetic organism, relates to a human enhanced with mechanical parts, often robotic in nature.

Thus gave us the first glimpse into this genre. Albeit low budget (I mean, instrumentation from the future labeled with Dymo Label Maker Tapes?) and featuring actors who were at their peak not just a few short years before, including Michael Rennie, Klaatu from "The Day The Earth Stood Still" or "The Keeper" from "Lost In Space", or Warren Stevens, Doc Ostrow from "Forbidden Planet ("Monsters! Monsters from the ID!") and throwing the tem-oral twist of alternative time lines, this cyborg pre-dated "The Six Million Dollar Man" (and Martin Cadin's novel it was based on, "Cyborg"), the Jean Claude Van Damme dystopic future wasteland adventure, even Star Trek: The Next Generation's most relentless enemies, the Borg (sounds Swedish!...sorry. I couldn't resist).

Add to that the obvious Terminator references (and people still forget about Harlan Ellison's own legal action against Cameron due to similarities in his Outer Limits scripts "Demon With the Glass Hand" and "Soldier") and you have a low-budget oddity that hasn't made the rounds in the post-midnight TV info-mercial circuit in years, being swept aside by other B-Movie kings like the Band Brothers' Full Moon Productions or Bert I. Gordon's & Brian Yuzna's Lovecraft micro-epics.