In
The
Herculoids (1967) segment called “Mekkor,” an army of small flying robot
machines land on Azmot and, under the direction of a buried command unit, begin
to take out the indigenous opposition.
Protected
by force-fields and armed with freeze rays, these mechanical invaders incapacitate
Igoo and capture Tara. Fortunately, Zot and Zandor find the army’s “hidden power source” -- or the command
unit -- and cripple the enemy once and for all.
When
Dorno asks what will become of the dormant machines, Zandor replies: “They’ll stay where they are. Someday the forest will claim them all…”
Dorno
gets a funny line of dialogue in “Mekkor.”
He sees the diminutive alien robots and notes with astonishment: “I’ve never seen anything like that!”
Except,
of course, Dorno and the other Herculoids just repelled an invasion by similar
small aliens in the previous episode, “The Pod Creatures.”
Other
than that (recent) encounter, he’s never seen anything like these robots
before, I suppose.
Once
more, “Mekkor” reveals almost no background about its particular story. Why have the robot aliens landed on Azmot? Why did they choose this location for an invasion?
What is there, on that wild planet that they could possibly want or need?
“Mekkor”
might have worked better as a story if a line or two of dialogue established
that Azmot is home to some vital material, substance or ore that the aliens
need to mine or collect to survive.
Instead,
“Mekkor” depicts another unprovoked, unmotivated attack on Azmot, and another
campaign that the Herculoids successfully and quickly repel. The most interesting aspect of the tale is
Zandor’s final line, which establishes the primacy of nature over technology, a
recurring theme in this Hanna Barbera Saturday morning program.
Nature
will survive, endure, and even encroach.
Technology will soon become…trash.
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