User Reviews

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.

In the 1950s and 60s, quite a few Japanese sci-fi and horror films were sold to the US. Then, the studios chopped the films apart and inserted American actors into some of the scenes to supposedly make them more acceptable to the public. Perhaps this was true, but in all these cases you wish today that you could also see the original non-bastardized version as well. One of the most famous examples of this sort of film is the original "Godzilla"--where they added lots of footage of Raymond Burr saying and doing practically nothing of value! In fact, his pointless performance was parodied very cleverly on "Pinky & the Brain"...with Burr's character saying "...yes....yes...I see..." every time the camera cut to him! "Battle in Outer Space" was originally "Uchû Daisensô" but was sold to Columbia Pictures for American distribution and I assume, too, that changes were once again made for domestic distribution. Unlike many of these films, it has been unavailable for viewing due to the film's decomposition (the print turned red). Somehow, they've either restored it or found a decent copy, as recently it has finally been re-released on DVD as well as on local On Demand viewing--and I must say the glorious 1950s color is outstanding.

The film begins with a UFO attack on an Earth space station orbiting our planet. Soon, UFOs are seen all over the planet and naturally the governments of the Earth (led by the Japanese) are organizing to combat this. But the scourge is much worse--aliens have also been kidnapping humans and implanting them with devices to control them! And, when you think it can't get any worse, the aliens set up a base on the Moon--presumptively to use for an eventual attack on the planet. All this occurs just in the first 20 minutes! Can the human race survive in an eventual battle in outer space?! If you compare this to other space films of the era, "Battle in Outer Space" is actually quite exceptional--and is probably among the best. However, with huge advances in technology since this film was made, today it all comes off as very quaint. But, don't dismiss it so quickly--as I said, for its time it's very good. The action sequences (especially those in space where you can't see all the wires!) and effects are Japanese 1950s robot cool. The biggest weakness in the film is in its narrative and characters--which are a tad bland.

Thank goodness the Earth they had their flying weinermobiles! See the film and you'll know what I mean.

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.

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.

Hostile aliens from the planet of Natal make their presence known to the people of Earth. All that they demand is complete surrender. But humankind won't go down without a fight. All the nations of the planet are thus motivated to band together. An integrated crew mans two rockets that are flown to the moon, where it is believed that the aliens are headquartering.

"Battle in Outer Space" is fun to watch, to a degree, although this viewer never found it as exciting as he might have liked. It is slightly overlong, and plodding. It takes until the final quarter hour of the movie until the title battle can take place. The characters, by and large, lack any really interesting features, except perhaps for the dedicated scientist Professor Adachi, played by Koreya Senda. There is a quiet romantic interlude early on, but it's over before too long.

At the least, it can be said that this is fairly colourful (both literally and figuratively) entertainment. The visuals are nicely photographed in widescreen by cinematographer Hajime Koizumi, and the special effects are rather dazzling. Some of the sequences on the moon are reasonably creepy. One fine moment occurs when one of our human characters risks their own life to ensure that the other heroes can make a clean getaway.

The extremely prolific Japanese genre director Ishiro Honda gives the proceedings a decent amount of style. His movie does just fine as a selection for a slow Sunday afternoon.

Six out of 10.

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

Made almost two decades before Star Wars, Battle in Outer Space (1959) was certainly an outstanding accomplishment by Toho studios. Of particular note is the almost 3-dimensional effect of the space battles in which we have a real sense of space craft maneuvering.

There are some cringe-worthy moments in Battle in Outer Space such as when one of the crew members during take-off places his hands on either side of his face and stretches the skin to illustrate the effects of g-force. There are also the miniature models of the buildings in Tokyo being destroyed and sucked up that don't look very detailed or realistic. And of course, there's the nutty techno-babble and pseudo-science that would make a flat-earth proponent sound credible!

Oh my gosh, one could not fail to notice the Ewok-like munchkin aliens on the moon shuffling around, waving their arms and acting like cute squeaky toys! They didn't look capable of attacking one single astronaut let alone an entire planet!

Please don't get me started on the Keystone cops chase involving the inept security guards on the tail of the Iranian delegate Dr. Ahmed. All we needed was the theme tune to the Benny Hill Show.

Despite some of its shortcomings, Battle in Outer Space contains an entertaining and well-paced story delivered by a cast who give sincere performances. The effective cinematography, along with a rousing music score and mostly impressive special effects serve to make this film quite enjoyable.

This movie is a fight for Planet Earth, which is being invaded by munchkin-like aliens from the planet Matel. This film is one big and continuous battle between the humans and aliens, involving lots of flying saucers, rockets and laser guns. The scene where the humans and aliens battle in outer space is an inspiring work of special effects, which closely resemble a battle fought in "Star Wars." And, that particular movie didn't come to theaters in another 18 years! Though the special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya are good, the plot in this movie was not inspiring and even boring at times (especially the beginning scenes where the people blabber with one another on the planet invasion case and on the weapon inspections). The human characters weren't very remarkable. Jojiro Okami and Shinichi Sekizawa's story is interesting, but the plot just wasn't intriguing. The action scenes were the saving grace of the film.

Overall, not one of the best and exciting of Toho's sci-fi movies.

Grade D

I've always been a sucker for these cheaply made films because I grew up on them but this one just doesn't have the lasting impact of the other films of this kind. Earth is of course attacked by martians in UFO's and the countries of the world unite to combat them. We send a crew of astronauts to their planet to stop them and then get ready for the battle royal back here on Earth. Although early on in the film their is to much talking and discussing on how to stop them, once the two ships leave for the planet then the film never ceases the action. But one thing that I think hurts the film is that the martians just don't leave a mark. We see them in one scene and they seem somewhat harmless. They are short with orange plastics suits and big helmets with lights on they're foreheads and have long noses! Not scary at all! So the rest of the film is just UFO's flying around. As silly and laughable as other films like "Mothra", "War of the Gargantuas", and "Rodan" at least those are memorable in their own way. This one seems to be easily forgotten. It just doesn't distinguish itself like the other films.

I saw this film in 1960 playing with "The Time Machine" as a double feature. Though not as rich in story line as "The Mysterians" this film really takes off when the two Speep earthships go to the moon to battle a base set up by the planet Matal who also fly "Mysterian" style flying saucers. On the moon the action really starts with marvelous raygun battles between the enemy and earth forces. The earth forces possess a marvelous heat ray cannon as well as smaller but potent raygun rifles. Later in the film, the earth forces battle invading flying saucers and a mother ship with X-15 styled fighter craft equipped with heat ray guns. The finale with the mother ship's ray gun destroying Toyko is done quite well.

For the time this film was made, the special effects are quite good. Considering my nickname is ray-gun 3, this is a ten star IMDb vote scale film in that department. I think the best scene in the film is on the moon where one of the crew stays behind with his ray rifle destroying flying saucers so the earth force can get away in their Speep spaceship. This scene is one of the best piece of special effects I have scene in this type of movie. A thought to remember is the film was made 17 to 18 years before "Star Wars". An outstanding accomplishment by Toho studios.

1959's "Battle in Outer Space" is one of the more obscure Toho efforts, no giant monsters and few recognizable faces among the cast either. Theatrically double billed with Columbia's black and white "12 to the Moon," if nothing else it showed how much more colorful and exciting the Japanese can be with a mildewed premise not handled conventionally on a miniscule Hollywood budget. Earth in 1965 is menaced by invaders from the planet Natal, causing destruction across the globe from their base of operations on the moon. They try to prevent the building of a special heat ray through human slaves whose minds are controlled by radio waves but two rockets successfully blast off at the half hour mark, reaching their destination after an hour. The main dome on the moon is targeted, after which the survivors return to Earth where the final battle takes place in the air, one mother ship and several smaller craft all that's left to fight for the would be conquerors. This was Toho's second space opera, following "The Mysterians," a subgenre that never gained much traction despite their superiority in depicting mass destruction. As entertaining as it is, it's nothing but full scale battle scenes with only a small number of human confederates causing minor damage to the victorious Earth fleet. One almost wishes it didn't look so easy, and director Ishiro Honda actually steered clear of alien invaders thereafter, except where Godzilla was involved.

This movie has pretty decent special effects for its era and might be quite good. The fundamental flaw is the incredible nativity of the plot and stupidity of the "actions" of Earth soldiers. A little hint here: You should never allow troops to be lead to the war by the nation who just lost the war. The combat scenes are stupid and overall "plan" of Japan lead Earthlings is basically nonexistent. I do mean the combat scenes are painfully stupid. This has degraded the movie so much!

I think it still worth to see how great special effects could be made before the CGI era. They are really really good. But the plot should be written by someone completely else.

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 was surprised how influential this film appears to have been. The meticulously clean set designs and some of the shots obviously influenced Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. The scenes of fighter planes going up against flying saucers bring to mind Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Independence Day and so many others. Also a clear influence on the last-mentioned film is the destruction of famous monuments and the global coalition that bands together to defeat the flying saucers and their mother ship.

The legendary Ishirô Honda, creator of Godzilla, directs this Toho Studios outing and, though the dialogue is awful, and the pacing in the first half drags a bit, visually it's a thing of beauty. I love the American flying saucer films of the period, but, aesthetically, this is streets ahead of what the US was producing at the time. The miniature work is so well done, even if at times you think you're watching an episode of The Thunderbirds. Frankly, I'd rather see real objects held by strings than CGI that's laid on so thick you may as well be watching a cartoon. Life size lunar vehicles were built for the actors to climb in and out of, and they match the miniature work very well.

Often said to be a kind of sequel to 1957's The Mysterians (though I don't know why) there are no giant monsters or robots, but we do see the aliens on the lunar surface stumbling around in their space suits not looking very dangerous at all. Once they're in the air, however, raining down the apocalypse on Tokyo, New York and San Fransisco, they're clearly a formidable threat to humanity's existence. The final act is an aerial battle that kicks alien butt but it's all resolved very abruptly as the world cheers on its airborne heroes. As a postwar fantasy about the world's capacity to band together in brotherhood in order to secure a prosperous future, it's pretty hard to beat.

Ishirô Honda may not be taken seriously by film buffs but he took his own work very seriously. He was a close personal friend of Akira Kurosawa (who spoke at his funeral) and worked with the master on Kagemusha (1980) and Ran (1984). Kurosawa is certainly the greater genius but Honda gave us Gojira, Mothra, and the Mysterians. For those, and this precursor to so many great science fiction classics, he also deserves to be celebrated as one of the greats of Japanese cinema.

Ishiro Honda returns to the cinemas with another big, special effect spectacle ala The Mysterians. I'd say that this is a step down from the previous film, not having the same kind of narrative verve (the modest amount that The Mysterians demonstrated) and is more of a straightforward sci-fi adventure. That could work if, again, there were characters of any depth to be had, the kind of lynchpin necessary to bring audiences into an adventure. But, alas, the script by Shinichi Sekizawa is just too thin to accomplish that.

Alien ships attack a Japanese space station, destroying it and causing a panic in the upper-echelons of the world governments. In addition, strange weather events dealing with cold are doing terrible things like lifting entire bridges off the ground, sending trains to crash in the valleys below. There's a surprising amount of time trying to explain how cold temperatures lessen gravity (nonsense), the sort of science deification that is sadly constant in Honda's science fiction films which mixes really badly with the fact that the science itself is, well, nonsense. Anyway, the film is better when it just accepts nonsense without trying to explain it, like when Dr. Ahmed (George Wyman) gets remote controlled by the aliens, turning him into a saboteur. What's the science behind that? Doesn't matter. It just happens. That's better.

Anyway, the governments of the world decide that the only action is to send up two rockets to the moon, where the alien radio signals are originating. The first is commanded by a Japanese commander (Minoru Takada), and the second is commanded by Dr. Richardson (Len Stanford). The inclusion of the American commander is interesting mostly because he's barely in the film, but he gets prominence near the beginning and the end, like some sort of half-thought-out sop to American audiences and distributors who were eating this stuff up at the time. It sort of reminds me of the common practice these days of including minor Chinese characters in big budget films like The Martian to appease the Chinese market and funding.

Anyway, the actual main character is probably Major Ichiro (Ryo Ikebe), the Japanese commander's second hand man. He seems to be the focus, but this is such a plot-heavy film with hardly any sense of character that it doesn't really matter. He's strong, professional man in the middle of special effects. There's also his love interest (I guess) Etsuko (Kyoko Anzai) who accompanies the team to the moon. The only real bit of actual character work goes to Iwomura (Yoshio Tsuchiya) who gets controlled by the aliens (intermittently, only when they actively send commands). He's the navigator, instructed to sabotage the mission at certain points (but never the best times to completely destroy the ship because plot), and he feels guilt at his lack of command of his own actions. It culminates in a nice moment in the first of the two action spectacular finales that doesn't quite seem to make the most sense, but it's fine.

That leads me to the actual appeal of this film: the special effects. Like most of Honda's films in this vein, the main attraction is Eiji Tsuburaya's model work, and there's a lot of it here. This was obviously an expensive film at the time (probably a reason for the sort of prominent and out of place American character, a potential necessity of funding), and Tsuburaya throws a lot at the screen. The rocket launches, the alien base on the moon, the extended fight on the surface, the counterattack on Earth, it's a lot, and it's genuinely fun. There's a lot going on, and it's inventive and just a joy to watch.

So, the plot is threadbare but functional, an excuse for special effects. The characters are threadbare and don't take up too much screentime (except the early scenes when scientists try to explain stuff which is...please stop). However, the film has its focus on what it does best: models doing action and science fiction things. It's a clear line through the action from one beat to the next, and the characters almost never get in the way. It's an expensive film of modest narrative ambitions, but it manages those with flare and fun.

I mean, it's not quite good, but it's decently amusing for long stretches.

Sequel(of sorts) to "The Mysterians" has a Japanese space station attacked and destroyed by aliens who use it as a bridgehead in their second attempt to conquer the Earth, which includes flying saucers decimating cities and causing widespread destruction. The United Nations mounts a counter-offensive to defeat these invaders, and save the civilized world before all is lost...Like its predecessor, there is lots of action and explosions, both in space and on land, but is also similarly silly and one-dimensional, both in story and characters, but children are unlikely to mind. Fine model work and F/X on display here, but ultimately forgettable.

Battle in Outer Space (1959) is a Toho classic I recently watched on a random streaming site. The storyline follows invaders that have taken over the moon and plan to invade Earth next. As they begin arriving the world realizes they cannot wait for an invasion and need to take the fight to the aliens. A spaceship is sent to the moon to destroy the alien base and send them crawling back home.

This movie is directed by Ishirô Honda (Godzilla, 1954) and stars Ryô Ikebe (Pale Flower), Koreya Senda (The H Man), Hisaya Itô (Destroy All Monsters), Yoshio Tsuchiya (Yojimbo) and Ikio Sawamura (The Hidden Fortress).

The science explanations in this always crack me up as they explain what's happening and how to defeat it. The models are always awesome - the moon landscape, the saucers, the attack scenes and destruction are all entertaining and well done. The Ray guns were excellent. They did a really great job with everything.

Overall this is another well done science fiction gem by Honda. I would score this a 7-7.5/10 and strongly recommend seeing it.

I'm a big fan of old Japanese science-fiction movies, but this one was a bit of a letdown. It's a pretty simple alien invasion movie, but I guess a large part of it involves the humans meeting the invaders halfway, before they reach earth, so that makes it a little different.

It was directed by Ishiro Honda, who directed many early Godzilla movies (including the very first one) and numerous other science-fiction/horror/action movies throughout the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. This is probably a little less entertaining than most of his efforts though, unfortunately.

The second half provides some fun action and special effects sequences, but otherwise it's a bit boring and by the numbers (though not horrendously awful). Some of the fighting near the end reminded me of the finale in the very first Star Wars, so it make me wonder if George Lucas ever saw this (or it might just be a coincidence).

A very fun Sci-Fi pop movie by the great Ishirô Honda, with the classic Japanese special effects of maquettes and miniatures that I love so much. It's not as good as other works of his and, even when at the time it was quite a big film, it has dated a lot, but still it was influential in the kids of the 60s. You can easily imagine Roland Emmerich enjoying the final destruction of cities in the extra-terrestrial attack.

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.

The nations of the Earth unite in a common cause to fight off an invader from outer space.

The film is considered a loose or "nominal" sequel to "The Mysterians" (1957), jumping ahead several years to 1965, when Etsuko Shiraishi and Dr. Adachi, among others, are now heavily involved in the United Nations Space Research Center in Tokyo. The continuity is not important, though, and if someone did not see the earlier film they will not be confused in the least.

Although not the first time "Godzilla" director Honda takes on space, a topic on the forefront of everyone's minds in the late 1950s, this is probably one of his better explorations of the theme. It is always interesting to see what movie creators thought space travel and space suits. This film was able to correctly predict a fair number of things, and even takes a crack at what walking on the moon would look like.

Howard Thompson gave the film a generally positive review, stating, "The plot is absurd and is performed in dead earnest... the artwork is downright nifty, especially in the middle portion, when an earth rocket soars to the moon to destroy the palpitating missile base... the Japanese have opened a most amusing and beguiling bag of technical tricks, as death-dealing saucers whiz through the stratosphere... and the lunar landscape is just as pretty as it can be."

I have nothing to add to what Thompson has said, other than to note that critics today would likely be even more favorable in retrospect -- the film holds up well and displays a sense of fun and imagination rarely seen today.

This is Ishiro Hondas take on the classic space opera featuring alien invaders who have designs on Earth and will do anything to enslave mankind. This is a good, but not great, film. The only problem I have with it is that it tends to slow down during the scenes on Earth, especially the conference scenes. However, it picks up during the scenes on the moon and especially during the dogfight scenes featuring the rocket fighters battling the flying saucers. Also, in terms of acting, the best performance in this film definitely belongs to the great Yoshiyo Tsuchiya. Tsuchiya is excellent as the scientist who becomes possessed by the aliens, but becomes a hero who sacrifices himself after he is released from the alien control. He definitely makes this film more watchable.

Usually, one Ishiro Honda's science fiction films use two distinct themes. The first one is using his films as thinly veiled commentaries on socio-political issues (nuclear war, greed or commercialism) and the second is the world getting together for a common purpose. This film definitely follows the latter to a tee. This is definitely one where Honda uses his skill as a director to convey his wish that man would pull together for a common good instead of waiting until a major crisis to come together.

All in all this was a good film, but not a great one, but I still recommend it.