OUTLAW OF GOR
A film review by Bob Gray
Copyright 1989 Bob Gray
Having had this film inflicted on me over the Christmas holidays, I feel obliged to inflict it on the rest of you :->
This film is the sequel to GOR and was filmed at the same time to save money.
Anyone familiar with the original novel may like to try to spot similarities between it and the film.
There are lots of spoilers in the story synopsis below, and I make no apologies for them.
OUTLAW OF GOR -------------
The story opens with someone who must have been the top graduate of Nerd Academy trying to pick up women in a bar.
For reasons best known only to the director he is there with his good friend and colleague Tarl Cabot, who doesn't seem interested in women, and decides to leave. As Tarl and the Nerd drive away from the bar, Tarl's crystal ring starts flashing a green light, and the car's occupants are transported "By the mystical power of the homestone" to the desert planet of Gor.
"I was just cleaning it," says the priest who summoned them.
Tarl and friend are ambushed by a group of sword-wielding horsemen within seconds of arriving in the desert.
The inhabitants of Gor seem to be peculiarly unsuited to physical violence. This one unarmed man on foot takes on the whole band of seasoned villains, and by the rather strange method of sticking a captured sword under their armpits, manages to kill them all. This is even more incredible a feat, given the precision of swordsmanship the villains must have possessed to make long straight cuts in Tarl's clothes without scratching him.
Next we get to the magnificent city of Ko-Ro-Bah. It has a population of not more than fifty, or sixty if you count the horses and goats. The entire city consists of a half dozen or so tents and a number of cheap plaster columns arranged in a semicircle facing a combination pyramid and tunnel entrance. The entrance leads, at different times in the film, into the Imperial palace, into the dungeons, or into the mines. The mine, with a few people chained to the walls, also doubles as the dungeon.
In the city lives Menelanus, King of Ko-Ro-Bah, with his new bride, Lara. Tarl and friend are welcomed back, and Tarl is re-united with Talena.
After the obligatory banquet scene, Menelanus and Lara retire for the night. Lara poisons Menelanus and just for good measure stabs him as well. Tarl, who was just about to visit Menelanus and ask for Talena's hand in marriage, finds the body and removes the knife. Just then, the guards arrive and Tarl has to escape the city, accompanied only by a midget warrior who was with him when he found the body.
After wandering for days in a sandpit rejected by Dr. Who and Blake's Seven, and not having the sense to ask the frequently visible camera crew for water, they come on a party of slavers attacking a small group of people.
As I noted above, the inhabitants of Gor are very strange people. To escape from the slavers, this small group of Goreans run in little circles to make themselves look like a larger group of Goreans and frighten the slavers away. This tactic doesn't work very well, and shortly the newly acquired slaves are forced to suffer the ultimate humiliation. They are tied in a line and marched off, wearing toilet seats round their necks.
Tarl, with a cry of "this must stop," follows.
It doesn't stop, and we reach the slavers' camp. A dozen tents surrounding portable ornamental fishpond, from which Tarl and the midget can drink. No one even notices them. They steal clothes, Meat for the midget, and fruit for Tarl. Tarl is a vegetarian.
Tarl then attacks the slave auction with his cry of "This must stop." He steals horses, weapons and one of the newly acquired slaves. He kills a few villains, sets fire to the tents and rides out of the remains of the camp. The head villain decides to just let him leave.
There is then a sequence where Tarl tries to explain to his new companion that he is not her master, that he has set her free. He goes on to explain how much he hates all forms of slavery, and how Menelanus had been trying to abolish slavery from the planet. (The new self-proclaimed Queen of Ko-Ro-Bah, Lara, has reinstated slavery because she has to get someone to work the mine, it keeps caving in).
Tarl, the Midget and the freed slave have been followed from Ko-Ro-Bah by a hunter. He walks into their camp that night when they are asleep, frees their horses, and ties them up. He then marches them on foot back to Ko-Ro-Bah and collects his reward.
Talena has meanwhile been forced to fight a number of opponents for her freedom. She has obviously been taking lessons from Tarl. She knows the trick of sticking your sword under your opponent's left arm too.
After a little gratuitous violence in the dungeons, Tarl is led into the arena in front of the pyramid/tunnel to face the Queen's champions. Two large bald men. 250lb each, and not an ounce of muscle on either.
After a little more sword-waving and spear-throwing, Queen Lara is killed and the bad guys are defeated.
King Tarl and Queen Talena rule happily ever after.
The Nerd? He was thrown in the dungeon when Lara proclaimed herself queen, spent most of the film there, and is transported back to Earth when the Homestone decides to start flashing at the end of the film.
Tarl isn't wearing his crystal ring, be is in the royal honeymoon bed with Talena, so he isn't sent back.
I may have given the impression above that the film is being played for laughs. It isn't.
I may have given the impression that the film is worth seeing simply because it is so bad. It isn't.
This film is one of those Supreme turkeys which are truly awful but not quite bad enough for promotion to the coveted Golden Turkey status.
I didn't think it possible, but I would recommend the original John Norman book in preference to the film. (but I wouldn't go as far as recommending the rest of the series, I do have my limits you know).
Now has anyone else seen the original film that this is a sequel to, and is willing to confess to it?
Bob.
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