Recently I acquired The War in Space DVD on the recommendation of Christopher Mills Space 1970 blog and I'm really happy that I did. There's something satisfying with watching old school model FX movies. They have a certain charm beyond the digital realm in which rendered spaceships are created on a computer screen.
The story itself is the usual Japanese SF formula: Earth is invaded by evil aliens led by Emperor Hell, from a dying world and there is only one ship that can stop them... and no it's not called Yamato.
War in Space was helmed by effects supervisor Nakano Teruyoshi in typical Godzilla fashion with a plethora of explosions, and space opera clichés (not that this is a bad thing). The film is also an indirect sequel to the Toho Classic 1959 Battle in Outer Space as well as the 1962 film Gorath (There is mention of Space Station Terra as well as the absence of the Moon in the film).
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The film takes place in the "future" year 1988 when the Earth is suddenly attacked by a plague of invading spherical fighters attacking every major city on the globe. In response a team of scientists and pilots work in fury to prepare the space battleship Gohten as Earth's last remaining hope.
The final battle takes place on the planet Venus which gets destroyed at the end of the film (spoiler alert!!!). This kind of bothers me because while I'm no scientist, I'm pretty sure the destruction of a major planet in our solar system could cause significant problems. (But then in Gorath, the Moon was destroyed and we got on pretty well without it so I'm guessing the same logic applies here).
Bottom line the film itself is a tribute to Gerry Anderson's Thunderbirds and UFO series as well as the Japanese answer to Star Wars (the spacesuits are definitely a tribute to Stanley Kubrik's 2001). This is really a film for diehard Toho and Kaiju fans, while most modern audiences will feel the film lacks character development and pacing. Recommended only for dyed in the wool Japanese SF cinema fans.
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