Battle in Outer Space (1959, dir. Ishiro Honda)

[tbeasley]

I didn't see a standalone thread for Battle in Outer Space where we could just talk about the film in general so if I missed it I apologize.

This is the first Honda/Tsuburaya collaboration I think where the human drama takes a full backseat to the effects. Before there was usually a balance but here it's more of a celebration of spectacle. The outer space stuff does look nice (I love those handheld ray-guns), and you can tell the final battle had a big influence on Star Wars years later. Honda's unity of man theme is more important than ever, but the individual characters, even the attacking aliens (who seem pissed off about something), are a little dry. Yoshio Tsuchiya does give a nice performance and Ifukube's score is very haunting at times.

In the end I have to prefer The Mysterians. I do like both movies and Battle in Outer Space seems like a natural progression from Mysterians in many ways, I just think it loses sight on a smaller scale unlike Toho's first more earth-bound space opera.

[Shin_Edda_Robo!!!!!]

I agree mostly. I do think though Battle In Outer Space has a much bigger sense of scale and scope of the entire world than The Mysterians and from a cinematography perspective I think it beats The Mysterians.

[heroforhirerob]

Though I like both films, the plot in BIOS is considerably weaker IMO. The aliens are also less interesting. So overall I definitely prefer The Mysterians.

[Sokubo]

The effects for Battle in Outer Space are great, but the movie is so-so in every other regard.

I will say that this movie seems to have alot of White Knights who defend it to do the death.

[Rodanex]

Yeah, I had high hopes after reading Stuart Galbraith's glowing review of it in his book, but I found it to be pretty disappointing.

[MekaGojira3k]

I'd almost prefer Mysterians just for having a giant robot. I briefly preferred BIOS to The Mysterians when I first got it mostly for the positives Shin_Edda_Robo mentioned.