Weltkatastrophe 1999?

Oh, what a wonderful movie!!!! I loved it!!! Ok, special effects are a little weak, but the script was terrific!!!

This film is so powerful that it was successfully banned in its native country. Unfortunately, horrible dubbing and sound mix, commercial fade-outs and other tampering have cheapened the film into only a hint of its original brilliance. The film sports a unique score by Isao Tomita, which, for me, defines the essence of decline in the penultimate year of the 20th century we are now in. Unfortunately, bad choices in American narration cause erratic volume changes which decrease the effect. Critics attacked it for the distinctly seventies fashions which are, as predicted, back in vogue. The film was actually not written by Yasumi, but updated from his script for _Sekai Daisenso_ (_The Last War_) and credited to him out of respect. Perhaps if the film, which is minimal on narrative and seems a forerunner to the work of Godfrey Reggio, were given a widescreen and subtitled reissue (and what better time than this year), respect for the film would increase. It pulls out all the stops with disasters, including the pestilence of giant slugs (which are simply giant slugs, like though that plague India, not flesh-eating or blood-eating as detractors of the film would like you to believe) and plants that tear through subways (and no, they do not eat people as some reviews claim). Nature takes things back from the city, young people find solace in random sex, wanton drug use, and suicide. Traffic jams wreak havoc as people get out of control, food rations are torn away as people believe there are shortages, while luxury beef diets continue, and Nishiyama believes they are all related to the prophecies of Nostradamus. Bizarre effects ensue, like snow on the pyramids, and people's highest morals are challenged. What we have is a work of cinematic brilliance torn apart by an American distributor until what results becomes fodder for MST3K. Know what neurofibromatosis looks like?

I think the main reason a lot of folks look at Last Days of Planet Earth as a bad movie is that it really is a "message" picture...and a Japanese message picture at that. Message pictures really don't hold up well outside the era they were filmed in.

The early seventies were filled with doom & gloom films like this...look at Toho's own Godzilla Vs. the Smog Monster. This movie is wreathed in the prophecies of Nostradamus as well, so you can fit a whole lot of "message" in.

The film has a lot of good shots and some good SFX (the reflected city and the final apocalyptic scene are both well executed), but the US dialogue track makes the whole thing sound pretty lame. I'd love to see a subtitled version of it to see what the picture really was supposed to be about.

I remember seeing Catastrophe 1999: Prophecy of Nostradamus (or on Brasil TV, Catástrofe: Palavra do Nostradamus) when I was a little kid, and every time something happened, like Mutants on the attack or cataclysms would happen, I remembered running from the room, screeching at the top of my lungs, heading for my bedroom closet! I swear, my sister is sucha psyco for showing me this film when I was at an under ripe early age.

Forget Stephen King! I think the people whom worked on Catastrophe 1999 could just be a great creep out, despite some dated themes..... ...whew, that was a bit melodramatic *heh heh*

Nostrodamusu no Daiyogen was released originally in 1974 and subsequently banned in its homeland due to two scenes graphically depicting the aftermath of radiation exposure. The Japanese censors thought that the two scenes were far to reminiscent of the Hiroshima bombing to be seen by the public at large. Toho has since disowned the title, which has never been legitimately released in its original and unaltered form.

Catastrophe 1999, the international version of the film, was played in Europe and elsewhere. The film was cut from 114 minutes to 85, mostly removing important characterization scenes and the heartfelt speech of the Japanese Prime Minister that occurs in the final minutes of the film. This cut is still available on VHS in some European nations, but is hard to come by.

In the 1980's, Harry Saperstein (responsible for the US television releases of films like War of the Gargantuas and Frankenstein Conquers the World) got a hold of a print and butchered it into a cut several minutes longer than the international version (88 minutes) but lacking even more of the important scenes in the film. The original introduction was recut beyond repair, most of the references to Nostradamus and his prophecies were removed, and a makeshift ending was tacked on that minced scenes from the original Japanese ending and other parts of the film together. Paramount released a VHS and laserdisc of this version under the title The Last Days of Planet Earth and it is still played on television occassionally.

Thankfully for fans of Japanese cinema, someone located an unadulterated timecoded print of the film and has since made the original 114 minute version available, albeit only in Japan. I managed to snare a copy through an import service. The differences are astounding. Gone is the choppy editing of the international and US versions of the film, vanished is the dubbing, and what's left is one of the finest Japanese disaster films of all time. I can say for a fact that those of you who have only seen the Last Days of Planet Earth or Catastrophe 1999 prints of the film have, in fact, not seen the film at all. Judging the film by watching these butchered versions is not only difficult, but nearly impossible.

I encourage anyone with interest in the film to locate a copy of the 114 minute cut. It may not be for everyone, but those that even slighly enjoyed either of the cut versions are sure to find infinitely more to enjoy in the original Japanese version.