a review of 第四阶段

2021 Cult Movie Challenge Week 8: MST3K Week I think I might need to give this one another chance, mainly because I watched a low-quality VHS rip of the MST3K version for the Cult Movie Challenge. As it is though, this movie embodies a lot of the elliptical inscrutability of a lot of '70s sci-fi films that were working to embody the "2001: A Space Odyssey" model of semi-cerebral SF as opposed to the pulpier, more action-oriented "Planet of the Apes" model. Of course, we all know now that "Star Wars" would end up tilting the genre even further in the "Apes" direction just a few years later. But even then the bizarre combination of closeup nature documentary and people talking in computer server rooms seems hard to engage with in any dramatically satisfying way.