Depending on which version you see, it's either an epic masterwork or, a truncated mess. Originally, the film was a 1974 follow-up to the highly successful SUBMERSION OF JAPAN(1973). By this time, revenues for Godzilla had been falling and Toho saw more money in the disaster film genre. PROPHECIES OF NOSTRADAMUS was the next great, epic they did. The original cut is quite long and details the events that lead to world destruction by nuclear weapons. They had to work some monsters in there so what we get are giant slugs(about a foot or two long) and, giant bats(looked about four feet across). Details the story of a family in Japan-a 1970's polluted country-and how the excesses of pollution, famine and finally, war, effect them. Ostensibly, it's a loose remake of THE LAST WAR from 1961, by Toho. It even features stock footage from that film. There are some quite remarkable effects-a convexed reflection in the sky, of Tokyo thanks to a polluted and sweltering greenhouse effect which has occurred. A terrific matte painting of snow covered pyramids. And, later, a nuclear-blasted landscape of earth wit two VERY weird mutants scurrying for food. It was quite epic for it's time and a long film.
In 1983 or thereabouts, Henry G Saperstein's company UPA(which had under it's belt five Godzilla films and some other Toho works) acquired the film and edited it down to a scant 90 minutes, and re-framed it, and had it narrated in the style of the old Sun Classic Pictures and those strange pseudo-documentaries that got wide releases on secondary markets in the US through the 1970's. They even named it THE LAST DAYS OF PLANET EARTH(kind of like THE LATE GREAT PLANET EARTH, another 70's pseudo-documentary) The result is kind of a mess, and while it retains some of the cool imagery, it jettisons a lot more making scenes jump along inexplicably and the whole thing becomes a "THis was just a possibility. We can change the future" kind of ending. It then was sold directly to VHS and TV so it wound up appearing usually very late at night on the old TNT "100% Weird" and AMC(when they showed a lot of old retro movies).One scene that was excised, for a time, in the Japanese LAser Disk print was that of the mutant humanoids fighting over a worm. It was such a disturbing scene that Toho removed it after complaints from Hiroshima survivors and such. So it made the US print highly sought after even in the truncated and panned and scanned form(the US VHS and LD copies were from a 16mm print) in Japan. Later, Toho would restore the scene.
Perhaps the US holders of the film, Classic Media, will see to releasing this film in it's full Japanese version.
