| Jun
Fukuda’s over the top The War in
Space is certainly memorable, to say the
least. Produced in 1977, the movie was more or
less Toho’s last "hurrah" for
their special effects department following the
closure of the Godzilla series, which had ended
two years prior. After this picture the company
would scale down these types of productions astronomically,
with only a few exceptions in the decade to come
like Magnitude
7.9 (1980) and The
Return of Godzilla (1984). Unfortunately,
The War in Space is hardly an ideal film
to mark this transition, as the movie is fairly
inadequate. The chief problem, and most crippling,
is simply that the story here does little to develop
the plot or its characters, as it rushes to get
the Goten up and running as quickly a possible;
other aspects of the movie don’t fare all
that well either, as the acting is fairly pitiful
while the special effects end up being only decent,
although at least the soundtrack is something
to look forward to.
In terms of plot, the movie starts
out in 1988 with pilot Koji Miyoshi's return to
Japan in response to electromagnetic interference
that is plaguing the world following a comet scare.
Miyoshi is quickly reunited with old friends and
acquaintances upon his arrival, although the reunion
is cut short as UFOs began to appear all across
America as the UN's Space Station Terra is also
destroyed in orbit. This series of events prompts
Miyoshi to meet with Masato Takigawa and request
that the aerial warship Goten be completed. The
request falls on deaf ears until the aliens behind
the recent disturbances bungle a plan to kidnap
Takigawa, at which point work on the Goten commences
amongst global chaos from attacking Hell Fighters.
Following a fierce battle at the Goten’s
base, the craft is finally launched as it makes
its way to Venus, the suspected location of the
invaders’ base of operations, to put an
end to the alien threat.
The movie is a fairly straightforward
alien invasion flick from Toho, which could be
described as a remake of the first half of Battle
in Outer Space (1959) with elements from
Atragon
(1963) added in. The opening act of the film is
notably light, though, as the picture jumps right
into the invasion with Terra being destroyed followed
by global alien strikes, and all before the movie
hits the 20 minute mark! The pacing in general
seems to be stuck on fast forward, although I
suppose it’s preferable to have a movie
that moves too quickly as opposed to one that
moves too slowly. The feature gives little time
to reflect on the proceeding events, though, as
the world is being torn apart by these invasions
(seen here ala stock footage) yet the movie takes
no time to show how severe this devastation is.
The story kind of leaps into the movie already
in progress too, with comets and UFOs abound,
although neither of these are shown until actual
monuments begin to be obliterated, causing the
audience to be fairly detached from the action
early on. The aerial battle sequences in general
also seem to be uninteresting, particularly the
Goten’s fight against the Hell Fighters,
which consists of it firing explosive charges
for two minutes at the crafts with nothing to
spice up or differentiate between each attack.
The final battle between the Goten and the Daimakan
on Venus fares better at least, as it does vary
up the action, although it also tends to draw
on way too long. Several introduced elements of
the film are also used ineffectively here, with
the best example being the Space Beastman whose
onscreen time is extremely limited (although given
the design, that might be for the best). The creature
primarily just stands around holding Jun in her
leather outfit, and gets a short battle with Miyoshi
as he attempts to flee the Daimakan. The only
thing particularly special about the creature
seems to be that the large axe that he wields
is immune to laser fire. Given Fukuda’s
previous track record, it should come as no surprise
that, like the reflective eyes of King Caesar
in Godzilla
vs. Mechagodzilla (1974), characters
instinctively aim for this area, making the creature
seem more powerful yet at the expense of making
Miyoshi look like an idiot for repeatedly aiming
at the axe instead of blasting the creature away;
however, a quick knife to the Beastman’s
gut ends his reign anyway.
One interesting thing to note about
the story of the film, though, is that it’s
established as a sequel to Ishiro
Honda’s Gorath
(1962). There are no direct references made to
the events that transpired in that film, of course,
but this movie does feature the UN's Space Station
Terra from the movie while the moon, which was
destroyed by the collapsed star in the 1962 film,
is no where to be seen. The movie also takes place
in the late 1980’s, allowing for it to follow
the events in Gorath
(1962) that were set in 198X.
Still, beyond this welcomed sense
of continuity with an older science fiction production,
the largest complaint to be had with the script
is simply that the characters here are so pitifully
underdeveloped that it borders on humorous on
more than one occasion. The worst example of this
is when crew members of the Goten die and the
lack of emotion present in the other characters.
This is sometimes more mundane, like the raid
inside the Daimakan where they drag off their
own dead and shove them to the side with the same
level of care they do with the alien corpses;
however, there are much more extreme examples
as well, like when Jimmy is shot down yet, beyond
Miyoshi crying “JIMMY!”, there is
literally no reaction to his passing. The audience
can see a lot of this stuff coming a mile away
too, like when Muroi tells Miyoshi that if he
doesn't return he wants him to take care of Jun,
his fiancé, at which point I don’t
think anyone in the audience expected him to survive.
Predictably, he does indeed meet his end during
the battle on Venus, yet the response to this
is a simple close-up shot of Takigawa, Miyoshi
and Jun, the latter of which also does a loud
gasp. After that, nothing, he is never brought
up again nor does any crewmember seem very remorseful
for his death. Hell, Mikasa of Space Station Terra,
who died off screen, gets a more meaningful reflection
from the cast then Muroi does, which is just pathetic
given that he is one of the lead characters. The
lack of human emotion present in response to other
characters passing away is also about in line
with the hollow characters present in Shuichi
Nagahara and Ryuzo Nakanishi's script, as nearly
nothing about cast is revealed during the course
of the movie. The only exception to this is that
Jun, despite being engaged to Muroi, is in love
with Miyoshi. This fact is repeatedly drilled
into the audiences’ head, as even Muroi
tells Miyoshi about it at one point, which is
about as unreal as you can get as I don’t
think you will find anyone who will kind of nonchalantly
admit that their fiancé is actually in
love with their friend. However, the story never
really does anything with this idea, as even after
Miyoshi saves Jun, and even after Muroi’s
death as well, there never seems to be anything
particular that develops between the two.
In regards to the acting, forget
it. Not an interesting performance in the entire
film. Even Roy Ikebe seems fairly uninspired as
he portrays the captain of the Goten, Takigawa.
To even try to mention the chemistry between Kensaku
Morita and Yuko Asano would kind of be a disservice
too, as the two seem fairly clammy when they are
together on screen. On their own, both do fairly
inadequate jobs in the film as well. Asano especially
seems to need some work on her acting ability,
as it’s almost painful to see her during
the dinner sequence and her attempts to act natural
about stuttering in relation to her engagement
with Muroi. Of course one can hardly mention the
acting in this film without bringing up David
Perin, who plays the happy-go lucky, well for
the most part, American in the movie. He is established
as a fairly slick character in the film, parachuting
from his jet before it explodes and running away
while Hell Fighters discharge their blasts behind
him (of course, one has to ignore that they are
creating explosions roughly 7 feet high after
seeing their lasers wipe out entire cities earlier).
Perin does well to play the part too and actually
does a fairly good job with the acting for a English
part in a Japanese production, even if he I dubbed
over, as at least his tearful sequence in the
movie is credible.
As for the special effects, they
are handled primarily by Toho regular Teruyoshi
Nakano, with Koichi
Kawakita taking up the assistant effects director’s
chair. Sadly, the movie has a kind of an unfair
reputation in this respect for having poor effect
work. Compared to previous features by Toho, though,
this is actually a fairly well done production
from the special effects standpoint as Nakano
continues to show his improving expertise in this
area. The fact that The War in Space
was produced in a timeframe of only two months
is an even larger testament to the crew’s
dedication. Still, there are two reasons why this
aspect of the production is often downplayed,
with the most obvious being the rather questionable
designs present in the film. This ranges from
the "roman ship" style Daimakan to the
yellow horned, huge lipped Space Beastman. The
other reason is that this movie was created in
the wake of the US premiere of George Lucas’
Star Wars. Now when comparing the two
pictures directly it’s easy to see where
this sense of inferiority stems from, but then
one should consider that effects in Star Wars
were revolutionary at their time of release. Of
course this huge leap in special effects techniques
is also responsible for the decline in these types
of features in Japan, as budgets on the American
SFX films started to balloon while box office
receipts for Japanese movies continued to decline,
leaving Japanese studios with little option but
to focus on cheaper productions. Ignoring the
impending climate that this movie was produced
in, the crew here does a wonderful job on a number
of scenes, including the descent of the Goten
out of its heavily damaged base and several elaborate
set designs including the Venus landscape and
the interior of the Daimakan. Given that this
is a Nakanko film, though, it’s also not
surprising to see a huge range of stock footage
used, ranging from as old as Battle
in Outer Space (1959) to more recent
flicks like Prophecies
of Nostradamus (1974).
In terms of the soundtrack, Toshiaki
Tsushima does a pretty good job at crafting a
distinctly 1970’s score to go along with
the picture, which, without much contest, is the
best aspect of the movie. A lot of themes here
work very well, enough so that they are enjoyable
as a stand-alone experience even. Some of the
more exemplary pieces in the score include the
theme that plays for the “Goten vs. Daimakan”
battle along with the cue that is heard during
the alien invasion of the Goten’s base.
The fact that the invaders have their own short
music riff, which plays during numerous sequences
like the revelation of Schmidt’s true identity
or the Hell Commander’s confrontation with
Miyoshi, is a little cheesy, but it’s damn
hard not to smile from ear to ear when it’s
used so repeatedly in the feature.
In closing, The War in Space
is nearly littered with faults at all levels,
with the most fatal aspects being an uninteresting
story and hollow, emotionless, characters. Still
there is some kind of cheesy allure to the whole
thing, helped along by its rapid pacing and the
nice score done by Toshiaki Tsushima. However,
it would be unfit to call this anything other
than a fairly bad movie nonetheless, although
at least it’s more enjoyable than some of
the directors other work such as Godzilla
vs. Megalon (1973).
|
(1.5/5)