Battle in Outer Space

Battle in Outer Space brings back some happy memories. I recall seeing this movie at the local Strand Theatre. I was (10) years old at the time and it was such a revelation to see an outer space film in "Color". In those days most Saturday afternoon Sci-Fi was in B/W. True, there were a few high dollar efforts like War of the Worlds and Forbidden Planet but for the money, or lack there of, this "B" films brilliant colors & special effects (loved those jitter-bugging saucers)held its own with the big boys. I recently bought a Japanese DVD version at eBay, with English subtitles, and believe me it's just not the same as the dubbed English version. Forget the bad lip-sink, that "Voice of Doom" from the Natal Moon base is not nearly as ominous in Japanese. Glad to see others remember this little "B" gem too. Hope to see it properly released in DVD soon.

Ishiro Honda is the Steven Spielberg of Japan in that he created a huge body of work...big, exciting, fantasy movies of such number, quality and iconic value that he stands head and shoulders above his peers.

This film is among Honda's lesser known works, and is a rarity in that there is absolutely no Kaiju in this film, not even a robot Kaiju such as seen in the better-known 'The Mysterians'. And, in terms of the fantastic cinema of Japan, this is one of the more serious science fiction creations of the period, although containing many inaccuracies that would be glaring to anyone with the slightest familiarity to the work of George Pal.

This film features creative and interesting FX that vastly outshine most of what the US was producing at this time, and might even have the most complex miniature sets and sequences of anything produced by Toho during the classic period. There are large scale space ship dogfight sequences that anticipate Star Wars, which was done 17 years later.

The plot, while not profound, is sufficiently interesting and entertaining and the actors are good enough to make this an enjoyable escapist film. Thematically, this is classic Invasion Literature, with few new wrinkles thrown in...definitely straightforward, Honda doesn't give us anything ambiguous or subversive to chew over.

Any fan of old-school scifi and Kaiju films is liable to enjoy this one very much, it's just an impressive spectacle.

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.

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.

I thoroughly enjoyed this film. It is certainly paced slower than modern sci-fi movies, but the action moved along at a good pace nonetheless. The backgrounds, matte work, color and special effects were very impressive.

The one conceivable flaw was that there were no stand out actors or personal relationships (no love interest as there was in the original Godzilla). This may have been intentional as the story meant to emphasize a global effort against a ruthless and cruel invader.) I would rate this on the upper scale of Toho's scifi efforts (anotehr under-rated, under-viewed film would be "H-Men").

If you are a kaiju fan you will not be disappointed.