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Posted by Kenneth Morgan
on 7/30/2008, 10:45 pm
Today, Kenneth Morgan reviews the same movie he reviewed last time…almost.
*****
I don’t think I was really planning on it, but something a bit odd happened while I was watching the movie for this review. It seemed pretty familiar, actually. I double-checked a couple of things and found that I was right. In effect, the movie I was watching was basically the movie I’d reviewed the last time for DBNS. Well, it was too late to get another movie, so I decided to press on. Hope you don’t mind.
In any case, the original movie was the Japanese sci-fi/action movie “Atragon”. And the lookalike is our subject for today: “The War in Space”, released by Toho in December, 1977 (about six months after another movie about another war in space was released to some success). Oh, one more thing: the information on acting credits on IMDB for this movie is a bit thin, so I’m going to bypass that part. Again, hope you don’t mind.
The movie opens in the distant future year of 1988 (the autumn of 1988, to be exact). The first thing we see is an alien spacecraft, inexplicably shaped like an old Roman galleon. (SUGGESTED RIFF: What’s a galleon? Four quarts!) Said galleon then launches some more conventional-looking flying saucers that head towards Earth.
Meanwhile, we meet our three heroes: Miyoshi (recently returned from assignment in America), Muroi (who stayed in Japan) and Fuyuki (who we never learn much about). All three work for the Japanese Branch of the U.N. Space Federation, along with pretty Jun, who was Miyoshi’s girlfriend but is now engaged to Muroi. (Hope you’re taking notes on this.) Oh, and later on we meet token American Jimmy, who’s also an average hero type.
Anyway, reports of heavy electronic interference, heavy UFO activity over America and heavy comet debris around the Earth are capped off by the apparent loss of the U.N. space station at the hands of the galleon-ship. (S.R.: Shouldn’t they have switched to liters by now?) Miyoshi decides that the only way to combat this apparent threat is with Gohten, a space battleship designed by Jun’s father, Professor Takagawa. Unfortunately, Takagawa’s project was cancelled a while back and its personnel disbanded. In fact, Takagawa wonders if such a project is even necessary.
Well, the situation changes when Takagawa is visited by a Professor Schmidt, who is presumed dead, admires Takagawa greatly and is never really given much explanation as to why he’s so important. He asks for the plans for Gohten, so the U.N. can finish the project, but Takagawa realizes he’s an imposter, resulting in a brief scuffle with our heroes that leaves fake-Schmidt dead (and still no explanation as to his importance). Faced with this, rather laid-back Takagawa decides to go ahead with completing Gohten so Earth can defend itself. Which is a good thing, since the alien saucers are now destroying whole cities and delivering fake humanoids to try and destroy Gohten while it’s still moored.
Okay, cut to the chase. Gohten lifts off and shoots down a whole mess of alien saucers and sends the galleon packing. Faced with evidence that the aliens are based on Venus, Takagawa orders the ship to set course for the planet, a trip that takes just over a week. (They must’ve raised the speed limit in our solar system.) Later on, we learn that the villains are pretty much limited to a masked & helmeted rep of the Empire of the Galaxy (huh?) and his top guy, who looks like a cross between a Wookiee and Gentle Ben. It seems they rule much of the galaxy and want to take over Earth and so on and so on and on and on. In any case, the result is a lot of fiery explosions and such. Par for the course from Toho, actually.
Now, I checked the IMDB about this movie and it lists that it’s linked to two other Japanese sci-fi movies from the Fifties (“The Mysterians” and “Battle in Outer Space”, respectively). It also lists that it merely references “Atragon”. But I don’t agree with that; it’s more than just a reference. As I alluded to in my opening, this is basically a remake of “Atragon”, as one can tell from things like the ship’s design and the general plotline. However, like the later remake of “Rollerball”, it ends up presenting twice the action as the original, with only half of the intelligence.
While “Atragon” had a slow build up to the introduction of the supersub and then a build up to its actual use, “War in Space” shows us Gohten and gets it airborne within the first thirty minutes. And, before then, we’ve seen explosions and gunfights and such. Unfortunately, the earlier movie’s more complex themes of duty to country versus duty to one’s family are lost. And we also lose the characterization of the earlier movie. “Atragon” at least tried to show how the buy guys thought, and compared it to how the good guys thought. In this one, we get two villains (along with a bunch of nameless henchmen) who are never more then ciphers. There are, though, a couple of promising ideas dealing with the good guys (the romantic triangle, Jimmy learning of a personal tragedy), but these are never really developed and they just sort of fade out. Also, I had a tough time just keeping track of who was who among the three main action heroes (Miyoshi, Muroi and Fuyuki), since they all seemed pretty much carbon copies of each other. (No, I don’t think they all look alike. Don’t you dare pin that one on me.) And Jun was pretty much just a damsel soon-to-be-in distress.
Now, you may be saying, “Big deal, Ken! It’s a Japanese monster movie! Do things get blowed up good?” Well, yeah, they do. The enemy saucers launch attacks worldwide and they do make lots of things go boom. Problem is, it really doesn’t look as good as in the earlier movie. The SPFX don’t look cheap (like in, say, “Fugitive Alien”), but they really don’t look as polished as in “Atragon”. It’s possible this one had a comparably lower budget, but I’m not certain. I just wasn’t really impressed. I also wasn’t impressed by the music score by Toshiaki Tsushima; it lacks the power of the Ifukube music from “Atragon”.
I will say, though, that the movie did provide some good riffing material. You could throw in any number of “Fugitive Alien” jokes, especially when the heroes don their yellow jumpsuits onboard ship. At those moments when Miyoshi calls Takagawa “Skipper”, you just have to respond, “Yes, little buddy?” When the alien saucers attack Gohten and their shots have no effect, just try not to laugh and declare, “Your weapons are useless against me!” And you can toss in some jokes during more dramatic moments, like when Muroi asks Miyoshi to look after Jun if anything happened to him (S.R.: Any chance I can start before you die?), or when the U.N. (or the Japanese government, I’m not sure which) declares that the attempt to kidnap Takagawa is an act of interplanetary war and orders an attack on Venus (S.R.: Watch, now we’ll get a Michael Moore movie about how the Venusians aren’t a threat.). And don’t get me started on the obvious rip-offs from “Star Wars” (like the knife that glows and cuts a metal grate with a laser).
All in all, I didn’t enjoy “The War in Space” as much as the original version. “Atragon” may not have been a big-time action flick, but it was much better written and made. By comparison, “The War in Space” just doesn’t measure up. Hey, I have my standards. Even when it comes to Japanese movies about super-advanced battlecraft fighting unknown menaces while blowing up miniature cities.
Well, that’s about all for this. With any luck, my next one won’t be a remake of anything, intentional or otherwise. Still, I guess King Solomon was right: there’s nothing new under the sun. Even from Toho.
CONNECTIONS NOTE: A fair amount of MST & DBNS connections here. I’m not sure who Akihiro Hirata played in “The War in Space”, but he also appeared in “Fugitive Alien”, “Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster”, “Ghidora, the Three-Headed Monster”, the original “Godzilla” and even “Atragon”. William Ross (Schmidt) both appeared in and was associated producer for “The Green Slime”. Composer Toshiaki Tsushima also worked on “The Green Slime”, as well as “Time of the Apes”. Cinematographer Yuzoru Aizawa also worked on the original “Godzilla”, while director Jun Fukuda worked on “Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster”. And Executive Producer Tomoyuki Tanaka has a long list of connected movies, along with “Key of Keys”, the basis of the previously-reviewed “What’s Up, Tiger Lilly?’
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