Uchû daisensô

I saw "Uchu daisenso" or as it was titled when I saw it, Battle in Outer Space" when I was a kid- a long time ago. Now of course the inevitable comparison to modern space operas will reduce the impact of this simple picture, but taken in the context in which I first viewed it, this was a really cool movie. For starters, it was in glorious color, a rarity in sci-fi in the late 50's I can tell you. I saw a lot of horror and sci-fi movies when I was kid and color was rare. And like most Japanese sci-fi imports of the time this was the whole world united against the invading alien hordes. Yeah a little like Independence Day but In "Uchu daisenso" the United Earth already existed. It didn't take an invasion from outer space to unite the planet. Good (relatively speaking!) effects, a noble if simple plot, combined with beautiful Eastmancolor and this was the perfect drive-in movie.

Aliens are causing havok on Earth. So a bunch of astronauts are sent to the moon to war with these little funny midget aliens. Just a big battle from beginning to end, with the aliens sucking up Tokyo at the end (man is that cool). It is basically like a Japanese Independence Day except not nearly as intense or violent

Some really neat miniatures, beautiful matte paintings, and a very cool lunar set, are the highlights of this movie. It's fun entertainment for the first half, but becomes especially enjoyable midway through once our heroes land on the Moon.

As other reviewers have noted, this movie seems to have influenced Star Wars, in particular a couple of shots during the climactic battle in space, which seem as though Lucas might have lifted them from a print of this film and dropped them right into A New Hope.

Saw this when I was 11 years old, I recall the rocket fighters sent up by the Earth Forces are based on the X-15 rocket plane. One thing I remember-and it moved me at the time, and is one of the movie's strengths-is the scene where the earth space ships go past the area where the space station was destroyed-and you see the bodies of the crew. The action moves at a brisk pace, no long winded speeches or philosophizing. The SFX are pretty good for the time. As a side issue, I got a chuckle when I saw "Star Wars" in 1977, I recognized the "futuristic weapons" as being models of British Lee Enfields, German MG-42 machine guns, Heckler & Koch submachine guns.

This is Ishiro Hondas take on the classic space opera featuring alien invaders who have designs on Earth and will do anything to enslave mankind. This is a good, but not great, film. The only problem I have with it is that it tends to slow down during the scenes on Earth, especially the conference scenes. However, it picks up during the scenes on the moon and especially during the dogfight scenes featuring the rocket fighters battling the flying saucers. Also, in terms of acting, the best performance in this film definitely belongs to the great Yoshiyo Tsuchiya. Tsuchiya is excellent as the scientist who becomes possessed by the aliens, but becomes a hero who sacrifices himself after he is released from the alien control. He definitely makes this film more watchable.

Usually, one Ishiro Honda's science fiction films use two distinct themes. The first one is using his films as thinly veiled commentaries on socio-political issues (nuclear war, greed or commercialism) and the second is the world getting together for a common purpose. This film definitely follows the latter to a tee. This is definitely one where Honda uses his skill as a director to convey his wish that man would pull together for a common good instead of waiting until a major crisis to come together.

All in all this was a good film, but not a great one, but I still recommend it.