6) Battle in Outer Space (1959)

(2.5 👽's out of 5)

Director
Ishirō Honda

Cast
Ryô Ikebe - Maj. Ichiro Katsumiya
Yoshio Tsuchiya - Iwomura
Len Stanford - Dr. Roger Richardson

Minoru Takada - The Commander

Kyôko Anzai - Etsuko Shiraishi

Koreya Senda - Professor Adachi
Elise Richter - Sylvia


I was anxious to tap into the atomic age of sci-Fi B-movies from the 1950s and 1960s. "Battle in Outer Space" should make a decent segue into more well-known atomic age science fiction movies like "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers" (1956), "The Blob" (1958), "Conquest of Space" (1955), "It! The Terror from Beyond Space" (1958), and "Forbidden Planet" (1956). The list goes on. 

Director Ishirō Honda is no doubt the George Lucas of Japan. That's not because his 1959 movie "Battle in Outer Space" is anything like "Star Wars" though the title conveys the same general idea. I mean the title "Star Wars" suggests a battle in outer space!

Honda sat in the director's chair for the first Godzilla movie in 1954 as well as several other Godzilla movies of the Showa Era along with other Japanese Kaiju films in general. For "Battle in Outer Space," he teams with special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya, who previously worked alongside Honda for a lot of those same films. 

I wrote all about the Showa Era in my review of "Godzilla" on my horror blog, 1000daysofhorror.blogspot.com. 

"Battle in Outer Space" takes place in the future, but still the past. The year is 1965. Several unusual incidents occur which leaves scientists baffled. And as any sci-fi fan knows, that's not easy to do. 

These strange occurrences include a railroad bridge suddenly levitating in the air causing a trash crash. 

Later, an entire ocean liner out in the Panama Canal is lifted into the air by a waterspout, leaving it destroyed when it crashes back down. On top of that, severe flooding occurs in Venice, and the J-SS3 space station is destroyed. 

The UN steps in and calls an international meeting at the Space Research Center in Japan. 

There, Major Ichiro Katsumiya (Ryô Ikebe), Prof. Adachi (Koreya Senda) and Dr. Roger Richardson (Len Stanford) describe these unusual disasters and claim survivors suffered terrible frostbite as a result. 

These brainiacs think that some unknown and unseen forces intentionally lowered temperatures cold enough to cause frostbite in order to manipulate the Earth's gravitational pull. Katsumiya says he thinks these unseen forces are coming from somewhere outside of Earth. 

An Iranian delegate, Dr. Ahmed, suddenly gets a terrible headache and excuses himself from the meeting. 

As he's walking outside, another attendee named Etsuko Shiraishi (Kyôko Anzai) sees him suddenly become enveloped with a mysterious red light shooting down from the sky. 

He reports what he witnessed to one of the astronauts named Iwomura (Yoshio Tsuchiya) who's attending the meeting. But they can't find Dr. Ahmed when they go to check on him.

Attendees the conference come to the conclusion that aliens are behind these disasters. Fortunately, Earth is prepared to defend itself.

They conduct heat ray experiments at the conference. During the experiments, Dr. Ahmed shows up and tries to destroy the rays but is stopped before he can ruin everything. 

Instead, he takes Etsuko hostage and warns everyone that the Earth will become a colony for the planet Natal. 

After his hand is hurt, Ahmed tries to escape by running. A spacecraft from Natal flies in and vaporizes him. 

When a forensics team inspects his remains, they find a small radio transmitter had been implanted inside Ahmed. 

The transmissions are traced back to the Moon. 

So, the UN plans a reconnaissance mission that involves launching two rockets to the Moon. 

Iwamura is selected to be the navigator. But little does anyone know that he's under alien mind control. 

While those ships are flying to the Moon, they're attacked by remote controlled meteors, or "space torpedoes" as they're referred to in the movie. 

Iwamura is caught trying to sabotage the ship's weapons. So, his colleagues tie him up to prevent any further hinderance. 

After managing to dodge the space torpedoes, Natal aliens warn the ships not to land on the Moon. 

Of course, they ignore that warning, and both rockets safely land on the Moon. The crews don't waste any time searching for the alien base. 

While they're out exploring, Iwamura frees himself from his bonds and blows up one of the ships.
The crew find the Natal base inside a deep crater.
Unfortunately, Etsuko is taken captive by the Natal. But he's rescued by Katsumiya. 

The explorers from Earth and the Natal aliens get into a laser fight which leaves the Natal's base destroyed.
As a result, the Natal's mind-control over Iwamura is severed. 

Back to his normal self, but feeling terrible for what he's done, Iwamura offers to stay behind and provide cover while the rest of the explorers take their one rocket back to Earth. 

Having safely returned, there's only one thing left to do. The entire world prepares for one epic battle with the Natal. 

The first half of the movie is a lot of talk, mixed with a little intrigue to keep the audience invested just enough to stick around. There's little to be make the story exciting. 

Things take off (no pun intended) once the ships land on the moon. Even then, it takes too long for something really exciting to happen. 

The final act is probably the best part of the entire movie. Unfortunately, audiences have to sit through amazingly slow build-up just to get there. 

Once the audience makes it to the final act, a lot of miniatures are used to create the movie's namesake finale. The battle in outer space! The action is too far away from the camera. There's a lot of empty space surrounding those tiny ships in these battle scenes. 

Somehow, it doesn't feel right to harshly criticize the movie for its style of models and battle scenes. 

A battle scene shot in space was pretty novel at the time. 

For the most part, Toho Productions has an impressive knack for great productions, and a wonderful eye for detail. 

While their use of models may be considered dated, and perhaps laughable by today's standards, this technique hasn't lost its appeal, nor its fascinating nature. In other words, it's still pretty damn cool! These ornate models must have been fun to see and work with in person. It's an artform that can only improve with time. Just compare Toho's models from their atomic age sci-fi movies with Lucas's models used for "Star Wars" in the later 1970s to early 1980s.  

The sets are rich and detailed while the action, certainly being a product of its time, are not without care and effort. However, the land rovers that the astronauts use to explore the Moon and look for the Natal base look like a cross between Southwest airlines and the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile. Hey...they can't all be winners. 

Honda takes his time with the story almost to a fault. The story's drag is the movie's problem. 

Despite the epic nature of the final, it looks like I'm watching this carryout through a telescope from Earth. Spaceship models fighting each other in mid-space combat look more like tiny white specs zipping across the screen, shooting lasers and exploding. 

The movie overall is cut and dry. While aliens attack earth, it takes it's time building up for something interesting to happen. 

Eighteen years after the release of "Battle in Outer Space," Toho Studios released "The War in Space" (or "Great Planet War" as it was called in Japan) coincidentally the same year George Lucas released "Star Wars." It was announced at the time as a sequel to "Battle in Outer Space." Whether it is or isn't, I don't know. 

As for this movie, the entire story is a build-up to the movie's namesake, which happens in the final act. Getting there, however, is tedious and underwhelming.