Bye-Bye Jupiter (1984)

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Credits for Bye-Bye Jupiter
Bye-Bye Jupiter soundtrack


Bye-Bye Jupiter
The Japanese poster for Bye-Bye Jupiter
Directed by Koji Hashimoto,
Sakyo Komatsu
Producer Sakyo Komatsu,
Tomoyuki Tanaka
Written by Sakyo Komatsu
Music by Kentaro Haneda,
Yumi Matsutoya,
Jiro Sugita
Distributor TohoJP
Rating Unrated
Running time 129 minutesJP
(2 hours, 9 minutes)
Aspect ratio 1.85:1
Rate this film!
3.09
(11 votes)

Bye-Bye Jupiter (さよならジュピター,   Sayonara Jupitā, lit. Goodbye Jupiter) is a 1984 tokusatsu film produced by Toho. It was released to Japanese theaters on March 17, 1984.

Plot

In the year 2125, the Earth's population has exceeded 18 billion and mankind has terraformed many of the planets of the Solar System. On Mars, the Solar System Development Organization is conducting Operation Delta, using charges to melt the Martian polar icecaps into a reservoir with a newly-built dam. Under the ice, however, they found giant symbols carved into the ground like the Nazca lines of Peru. Similar symbols had already been found on the surface of Earth's Moon.

The passenger ship Tokyo-III transports space linguist Millicent Willem from Phobos to the Minerva-II station orbiting Jupiter to see Chief Eiji Honda. She is seated next to Hoger Kinn, an Irish Space Force Captain who also has an appointment with Eiji. Upon arrival, he informs the captain that two unmanned probes went missing and he is going to investigate the cause. Millie tells Eiji that aliens left a message on the Moon 100,000 years ago, followed by a message on Mars 50,000 years ago. From what she has deciphered, it shows an alien convoy trajectory pointing to the Great Red Spot of Jupiter. She implores Eiji to put his Jupiter Solarization project on hold.

Later, Eiji and his partner Booker Lafayette explain the JS project. Some of the 500 million people who have left Earth to live elsewhere in the Solar System don't receive enough sunlight, so the JSP aims to solarize Jupiter by overloading the planet with nuclear fusion and neutrino. As Eiji's boy genius apprentice Carlos Angeles explains the process, a group of radicals destroy a carbon tetrachloride tank and are detained. It is found out that they are part of a new religion called the Jupiter Church, which is opposed to space exploration and thinks humanity should only live on Earth. Meanwhile, Captain Kinn and Dr. Ryutaro Inoue take off in the Space Arrow to investigate the comet nest where the probes disappeared. They are frozen in hypersleep pods.

Eiji recognizes his childhood sweetheart Maria Basehart in the group of radicals, who he has not seen in three years. He brings her to his office. He asks why she has joined the Jupiter Church and as they make love, she explains that the two were born on Mars and her parents died in a crash on the way to Earth and she has feared space travel since and wants Eiji to stop living on a spaceship and live on Earth with her. Eiji's automated assistant Nancy interrupts the two and notifies Eiji that it is time to depart with Millie to the Great Red Spot.

Upon arrival, Eiji and Millie see a giant floating object which Eiji had seen prior and named Jupiter Ghost. They pick up transmissions from the Jupiter Ghost that sound like wailing and believe that it is talking to them. Millie urges Eiji to move closer to it, but Jupiter's harsh weather damages one of their ship's wings, forcing them to return to Minerva-II. Millie decides to go to Earth's Moon because it has the world's most advanced computer system and she wants to decipher the message sent from the Jupiter Ghost. As Eiji watches a video message from Kinn, she sees Dr. Inoue in the background and recognizes him as her old lover.

The computer on the Space Arrow prematurely awakens Captain Kinn and Dr. Inoue from their hypersleep pods. Kinn eventually manages to hit the button and send a distress call but then the two fall into pieces and their ship does the same.

Detective Mohammed Mansur investigates the destruction of the Space Arrow and the unmanned probes at the lunar computer center, where he meets Millie, equally curious about Dr. Inoue's fate. She deciphers the Jupiter Ghost message as "DARK HEAVY DANGEROUS" at the same time as Mansur comes to the conclusion that a black hole destroyed the Space Arrow. Both are devastated. Mansur informs the the SSDO that the black hole is moving and will lay waste to the Solar System in only two years.

Eiji talks to SSDO Chairman Webb about repurposing the JS Project to overloading Jupiter with nuclear fusion and firing it at the black hole to alter its course. The political backlash is tremendous, but with the entire Solar System at risk, SSDO goes ahead with the project anyway. Carlos suffers a nervous breakdown after there is an accident on Minerva base so Booker decides to fill in for Carlos at a conference in Europe, but The Jupiter Church set a bomb in his Cargo craft.

Eiji cannot handle losing another friend so he comes to the church's beach where Maria had previously tried to invite him to and he confronts their leader Peter, who insists that his followers are strictly pacifist protests and would never set a bomb. Peter's pet dolphin which he named Jupiter was suddonly attacked by a shark and Eiji is quick to kill the shark and pull the dead Jupiter to shore which greatly upsets Peter. At the same time, Maria is arguing with her best friend Anita June Pope about how the bombs she has been setting is going too far from what Peter believes, but Anita manipulates Maria that it is the only way that his vision could be achieved because Anita is madly in love with Peter and is willing to resort to terrorism to make his vision of humanity only living on Earth a reality, as well as going against his belief by going to space to make it happen.

When Eiji got back to Minerva base, Carlos had been paralyzed from the waist down from another accident and he is in an Emergency Convenience Vehicle, but he thought of a new idea code named Mahayana-60 where they create a new control room for the new Jupiter project.

Anita's squad stow away on a Cargo craft to Minerva base and Anita gives them pills that eliminate any fear and effectively turn them into mindless soldiers. On Minerva, the Yellow and Orange jacket staff evacuate while only the essential Red jacket group are authorized to remain on. The Red group are Eiji; Carlos; Security guard Tanaka; and Engineer Richard.

Millie volunteers to work at SSDO to see the tragedy through, while she also bonds with her irritable grandfather chairman Webb who has been made worn out from his job.

Red group start preparations for B-time or Jupiter's blast time while the Flashbird convoy that evacuate the Transmission ships and Cargo crafts station number 07, the last ship in the convoy at Minerva to pick up the Red group while they are making preparations. As they are almost finished with preparations for B-time, Richard walks out and sees a sabotage agent who opens fire on him with a Laser Rifle. Tanaka is the only one of Red group with a Laser gun but it is a weak pistol and he is soon shot down. Eiji quickly reaches for the gun and pulls the unconcious Tanaka to cover while Carlos takes cover and tries to finish the final preparations but he is shot in the shoulder and falls off of his ECV. One of Anita's squad Mike who shot Richard starts to think again after his pill wears off and he is shocked at what he had done, but Richard wakes up and disarms Mike and shoots him, he then sneaks up on another one and shoots him in the head as he yells for Eiji but he is shot by Anita. Maria takes a high ground, ready to kill Eiji but her pill wears off and she kills Anita instead.

Eiji takes Carlos to the Cargo ship and sets it to take off but he stays behind and searches for the last intruder. He corners Maria and shoots her after she refused to freeze but he only found out it was her after firing, she told him to remove the explosives they set on the ship and he rushes to take them and put them in an escape pod and launch it, but one went unseen and it blew up just as he was walking towards it. the two crawl towards eachother just as the lights turn red which indicates that the whole system becomes automated and the project is ready to go. Eiji thinks he doesn't have much longer to live and he asks Maria to play his message card because he wants to hear Kinn's voice one last time but when she puts it in, it is a song Peter wrote that became famous all over the Solar System, but right after that the Jupiter Ghost's cry is heard throughout the Mahayana control room. the mysterious Jovians are sending a farewell message, they know that they are going to die with Jupiter.

Minerva crashes into Jupiter and Jupiter flies straight towards the Black Hole at sub-light speed and the course is changed.

Millie, Carlos, and Webb hold a funeral for Eiji and Maria on an Asteroid to honor the fallen heros.

Staff

Main article: Bye-Bye Jupiter/Credits.

Staff role on the left, staff member's name on the right.

  • Directed by   Koji Hashimoto, Sakyo Komatsu
  • Written by   Sakyo Komatsu
  • Produced by   Tomoyuki Tanaka, Sakyo Komatsu
  • Music by   Kentaro Haneda, Yumi Matsutoya, Jiro Sugita
  • Stock Music by   Akira Ifukube, Ikuma Dan
  • Cinematography by   Kazutami Hara
  • Edited by   Yoshitami Kuroiwa
  • Production Design by   Akira Sakuragi
  • Assistant Directing by   Masaaki Tezuka
  • Special Effects by   Koichi Kawakita

Cast

Actor's name on the left, character played on the right.

  • Tomokazu Miura   as   Eiji Honda, SSDO Chief
  • Diane Dangely   as   Maria Basehart
  • Miyuki Ondo   as   Anita
  • Rachel Hugget   as   Dr. Millicent Wilem
  • Paul Okawa   as   Peter, Jupiter Church Founder
  • Kim Bass
  • Mark Panthona
  • Ron Irwin   as   Captain Hoger Kinn
  • William Tapier   as   Edward Webb, SSDO President
  • Akihiko Hirata   as   Dr. Inoue Ryutaro
  • Masumi Okada   as   Dr. Mohammed Mansur
  • Hisaya Morishige   as   Earth Federation President
  • Nobushi Takeuchi
  • Taiga Mori
  • Taro Akagi
  • Masahiro Kubo
  • Mike Suzuki
  • Hubert Joanin
  • Alex Muler
  • A. A. Sultan
  • Andrew Hughes   as   Senator Shadllic
  • Craig Barnam
  • Tio Kaakinen
  • Mark McDonnell
  • Michael Brody
  • Jeff Hargan
  • Stewart Locklear
  • Tony Bracey
  • Jack Davis
  • Leonard Krause


  • Edward Goughet
  • Terry O'Brien
  • Bibi Devina
  • Charles Hontana
  • Leslie Gunther
  • Simmons Doreen
  • Klaus Harvest
  • Sally Hapwort
  • Dee Man
  • Sherman Wills
  • Nigel Reid
  • Charles Morgan
  • Maurice Karr
  • Jen D. Sullivan
  • Billy Casebolt
  • Tony Matoboo
  • Rick Mayer
  • Clemens Smolders
  • Sandra Orton
  • Lily Rodriguez
  • Charles Blanch
  • Michelle Sullivan
  • Ginny Cherry
  • Mercy Taira
  • Rob Gehagan
  • Richard Wright


Appearances

Monsters

Weapons, vehicles, and races

Gallery

Main article: Bye-Bye Jupiter/Gallery.

Soundtrack

Main article: Bye-Bye Jupiter (Soundtrack).

Alternate titles

  • Sayonara Jupiter (さよならジュピター,   Japan)
  • Goodbye, Jupiter, Goodbye (Adiós, Júpiter, Adiós; Spain)
  • Steely Vultures Space (Ατσαλένιοι γύπες του διαστήματος Atsalénioi gíles tu thiastímatos; Greece)
  • Operation Jupiter (West Germany)

Theatrical releases

Video releases

Geneon DVD (2003)[1]

  • Region: 2
  • Discs: 2
  • Audio: Japanese

Discotek DVD (2007)[2]

  • Region: 1
  • Discs: 1
  • Audio: Japanese (5.1 Surround), English (2.0 Mono)
  • Special Features: Behind the scenes featurette (30 minutes), About the Film, Another Sayonara Jupiter (description of a stage version of the film), trailers, photo gallery
  • Notes: Out of print.

Though Bye-Bye Jupiter is not available on Blu-ray, an HD version can be rented or purchased on the Japanese versions of Amazon Video and iTunes.

Videos

Trailers

Bye-Bye Jupiter Japanese trailer
Bye-Bye Jupiter International trailer

Trivia

  • Akihiko Hirata's role as Inoue Ryutaro in this film was the actor's final role before he died later that same year. Hirata was planned to appear in The Return of Godzilla as Doctor Hayashida, but was replaced by Yosuke Natsuki after his death.
  • In one scene, Captain Hoger Kinn can be seen watching Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster.
  • Writer Sakyo Komatsu originally wanted Orson Welles to play the role of the SSDO President, however William Tapier was ultimately cast.[citation needed]
  • The prop used for the "SSDO Large Type Blaster" (大型ブラスター) in the film was later reused in Godzilla VS King Ghidorah by the Futurians M10 androids, this is noted in Special Effects Treasure magzine.
  • According to promotional images, the "SSDO Small type Blaster" (小型ブラスター) is modeled after the LS M177.
  • According to the Making of Sayonara Jupiter, the film used the same type of "Snorkel Camera" used in the filming of Star Wars to emulate a proper size effect for the flying space ships.
  • Several of the ships from Sayonara Jupiter are seen in The Godzilla Comic "Godzilla: Kaiju Warrior".
  • The launch bay for the Earth probe vessel in Monster Planet of Godzilla is the Minerva base hanger launch bay, only vertically flipped.
  • This is the only Sakyo Komatsu work to have been intended to become a movie from the beginning, but he still wanted the novel to come out a year before.
  • In the novel, Hoger Kinn is watching "Star Wars 20" instead of Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster.
  • In the novel, there is a scene where the SSDO and the Jupiter Church have a Space battle.
  • In the novel, there are powered space suits used for repairs.
  • In the novel, Eiji and Maria reserve a "Love hotel" on Minerva.
  • In the novel, the project to melt the Martian polar icecaps is called "Operation Delta".

References

This is a list of references for Bye-Bye Jupiter. These citations are used to identify the reliable sources on which this article is based. These references appear inside articles in the form of superscript numbers, which look like this: [1]

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