Battle in Outer Space

source: Battle in Outer Space

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Dr. Immerman (played by Harold Conway)is my Grandfather and I this movie is great!! This fabulous movie is guaranteed to please any Sci Fi audience with lots of action & special effects and it captures the magic and nostalgia of the cinema of days gone by!

Some really neat miniatures, beautiful matte paintings, and a very cool lunar set, are the highlights of this movie. It's fun entertainment for the first half, but becomes especially enjoyable midway through once our heroes land on the Moon. As other reviewers have noted, this movie seems to have influenced Star Wars, in particular a couple of shots during the climactic battle in space, which seem as though Lucas might have lifted them from a print of this film and dropped them right into A New Hope.

In 1957 Toho brought us The Mysterians in an attempt to cashin on the popularity of sci-fi movies in the west. It was commercially successful but in this guys eyes was an appalling film. It spawned two sequels and this is the first of them. I expected bad, I just didn't expect it to be anywhere near as bad as this. I'd give my usual brief on the story but I'd feel dirty in doing so. Partially because it's so recycled and partially because it's such an absolute mess. Somehow it actually manages to look bad even for it's time, the writing is atrocious and the plot is a jumbled mess of incoherence, pseudo science and stupidity. Toho made great moody bleak movies and became the kings of the kaiju films but sci-fi? What an embarassment. The Good: It ended The Bad: Awful plot Incredibly ugly Cringe inducing script Things I Learnt From This Movie: Gravity randomly turns on and off at will Toho scifi is too bad even for the Scyfy channel

A truly great science fiction epic with plenty of futuristic hardware, alien invaders and cool spaceships. The best! It's finally available as of 2009 on DVD, although if you look hard you can find gray-market versions or bootlegs from Laserdiscs. The color is suitably lurid, the acting is done in earnest, the heroic Earth combatants do their best, the music is stirring -- it's really the PERFECT Japanese science fiction film! Why hasn't it been available before now on DVD? The whole Earth joins together to fight the "interstellar bandits" as one actor calls the threat. The spirit of the entire production is tremendously uplifting. It's a terrific picture that holds together even with the sometimes goofy Japanese translations. Absolutely the stuff of dreams for any little kid that loves old science fiction movies. A genuine treasure. Buy this one now while it's available!

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.

Aliens are causing havok on Earth. So a bunch of astronauts are sent to the moon to war with these little funny midget aliens. Just a big battle from beginning to end, with the aliens sucking up Tokyo at the end (man is that cool). It is basically like a Japanese Independence Day except not nearly as intense or violent

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.

"Battle in Outer Space" is another gem from Toho Studios. The film boasts some excellent (for 1959) special effects. The color print is stunning as well. The plot is similar to "The Mysterians" with aliens trying to take over mankind. In the end of course, earth triumphs over the aliens. The acting is decent, the dubbing is passable. The music score is done well. The real star of this film are the outer space scenes. I really enjoyed the spacecraft as well as the battle scenes. Toho Studios are more well known for their monster films (Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra)but these space films are just as good. If you get a chance, catch this as well as "The Mysterians".