The War in Space (1977)
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The War in Space (惑星大戦争 is a Wakusei Daisensō, lit. Great Planet War)1977 tokusatsu science fiction film produced by Toho. It was released to Japanese theaters on December 17, 1977.
Plot
The year is 1988, and Earth is recovering from a near-miss with a comet which released an electromagnetic wave that interfered with the planet's technology. Pilot Koji Miyoshi of the J.A.S.D.F. returns home to Japan in response to this incident, only to find that there are much worse matters at hand: the sudden arrival of the Yomi aliens and their fleet of warships.
Staff
Staff role on the left, staff member's name on the right.
- Directed by Jun Fukuda
- Written by Shuichi Nagahara, Ryuzo Nakanishi
- Produced by Tomoyuki Tanaka, Fumio Tanaka
- Music by Toshiaki Tsushima
- Cinematography by Yuzuru Aizawa
- Edited by Michiko Ikeda
- Production Design Kazuo Satsuya
- Assistant Directing by Kyohei Imamura, Okihiro Yoneda
- Special Effects by Teruyoshi Nakano, Toshimitsu Oneda, Takeshi Yamamoto, Yasuyuki Inoue, Takesaburo Watanabe
- Assitant Directer of Special Effects Koichi Kawakita
Cast
Actor's name on the left, character played on the right.
- Kensaku Morita as Koji Miyoshi
- Yuko Asano as Jun Takigawa
- Ryo Ikebe as Masato Takigawa
- Katsutoshi Atarashi as Tadashi Mikasa
- Masaya Oki as Reisuke Muroi
- Hiroshi Miyauchi as Kazuo Fuyuki
- Goro Mutsumi as Commander Hell
- Hideji Otaki as Dr. Matsuzawa
- Akihiko Hirata as Oshi, Defense Countermeasure Supreme Commander
- William Ross as Dr. Schmidt
- Isao Hashimoto as Research worker
- Koichi Yoshida as Gohten controller
- Junichi Kudo as Gohten pilot
- Susumu Otani as Gohten pilot
- Shoji Nakayama as Staff officer
- David Perin as Jimmy
Appearances
Monsters |
Weapons, vehicles, and races |
Gallery
- Main article: The War in Space/Gallery.
Soundtrack
- Main article: The War in Space (Soundtrack).
Alternate titles
- Great Planet War (惑星大戦争; literal Japanese title)
- Great Planet War: THE WAR IN SPACE (惑星大戦争 THE WAR IN SPACE; alternate Japanese title)
- Battle in Outer Space II (Japanese working title)
- War in Space (La Guerre De L'Espace; French title; Guerra No Espaço; Portuguese title)
- Galaxies Year 2000 (Galaxias Año 2000; Spanish title)
- Space War (Guerra Spaziale; Italian title)
- UFOs Coming! (UFO'Erne Kommer!; Danish title)
- The Great War of the Planets (Der große Krieg der Planeten; West German title)
Theatrical releases
- Japan - December 17, 1977 [view poster]
- West Germany - January 18, 1978
- France - March 8, 1978
- Denmark - March 27, 1978
- Sweden - June 26, 1978
- Spain - July 21, 1978
- Finland - August 7, 1978
- Portugal - October 10, 1979 [view poster]
U.S. release
In 1981, Toho's English-dubbed international export version of The War in Space was acquired by Gold Key Entertainment for use in their Galaxy series of local television syndication packages, which also included other, older Toho titles such as The Mysterians and Latitude Zero. Three minutes of footage, consisting of the opening introduction of Koji Miyoshi's return to Japan, and the setup of the love triangle between him, Jun Takigawa, and Reisuke Muroi was deleted, bringing the runtime down to 87 minutes. Gold Key's TV prints rendered the film's title card in white, and left the opening Toho Eiga-Toho Eizo screen, along with the film's end title, textless.
The film was given a home video release on VHS by Video Action in 1984. This release restored the three minutes previously cut in Gold Key's release, and used a different assembly of the international export version that included the text for the Toho Eiga-Toho Eizo and end titles, and also rendered the film's title card in red. A brief shot of Muroi saying the line "Jimmy" during the assault on the Messiah 13 forces on Venus is missing from the print used.
In 2006, Discotek Media gave the film a DVD release, which included the English dub, again with the "Jimmy" line missing, and the audio re-edited to account for its loss.[1]
Video releases
- Region: 2
- Discs: 1
- Audio: Japanese
- Region: 1
- Discs: 1
- Audio: Japanese (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono and Dolby Digital 5.1), English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)
- Special features: Teruyoshi Nakano interview (32 minutes), booklet, gallery of production and publicity stills
- Notes: Out of print.
Though The War in Space 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
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Other
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Trivia
- The War in Space was originally intended to be titled "Battle in Outer Space II" and act as a sequel to Toho's 1959 film, Battle in Outer Space. This idea was scrapped during production.
- The film makes use of stock footage from Battle in Outer Space, The Last War, Ebirah, Horror of the Deep, Submersion of Japan, and Prophecies of Nostradamus.
References
This is a list of references for The War in Space. 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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