Message from Space

source: Message from Space

Ahhh.. Message From Space. This was, as you probably read in previous comments, a grab at Star Wars from Japan. Sonny Chiba plays the main character of Hans. Chiba has a multitude of films under his belt as well as a very large following. The film is pure eye candy for any child despite its weak overall attempts at working out plot, characters, etc.. I actually like this movie. I enjoyed the fumbling Vic Morrow despite his intoxicated performance. I thought the special effects & props were creative. You see, the problem with any scifi film released in 1978 is that it will be compared to Star Wars. Star Wars set something as far as expectations, and anything else is considered a ripoff & a cheap one at that. The effects are retarded compared to Lucas & Co. But good for a saturday afternoon type movie. As a child this had a massive look to it and it was fast paced. The ships were actual sailing vessels in space, lots of good ideas but even with a date of 1978 there is no real excuse for how corny it ended up. Yes, & the walnuts.. Hard to believe. A not so typical 1978 type space saga with one step below the effects of the Flash Gordon movie. 5/10

This Japanese, Star-Wars rip-off is hysterical! My 13 year-old son and myself watched it on a Saturday morning and were falling on the floor laughing at the horrible special effects. The special effects included the very worst in plastic model building and in some scenes, you can see the rubber peel away (revealing hair) on the monsters. Pay attention and don't miss the exploding bad guy in the end! Better yet, skip this movie and doing something much more fun, like stick bamboo splinters under your fingernails... Your time will be much better spent.

OK.......imagine being incredibly drunk or high on illegal drugs. Now imagine that you have smeared your TV screen with tomato paste. Then imagine watching a pastiche of STAR WARS, BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS, THE WIZARD OF OZ, MIGHTY MORPHING POWER RANGERS (ZYU RANGERS), SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS, THE HIDDEN FORTRESS, THE SEVEN SAMURAI, FLASH GORDON (1980), BUCK ROGERS and every Toho film ever made. Now add spicy food to the alcohol and drugs in your system. Now go to sleep.......the nightmares that you will experience will give you an idea of what this misbegotten "live-action anime" looks and sounds like. Vic Morrow looks embarrassed (and a tad drunk) while playing opposite a robot more annoying than the robot from the BUCK ROGERS TV series. Sonny Chiba looks even more bored than he did appearing in SISTER STREETFIGHTER with Sue Shiomi. Peggy Brennan's goofy smile and annoying dubbed voice makes one want to commit seppuku (the dubbed voice was so screechy, awful and hard to understand that Brennan's DUBBED voice actually needed subtitles), while Phil Cassnoff's poofy hairdo seems to be alive (more alive than many of the actors, perhaps the hair should have asked for screen credit).

I first saw this flick when it was released in 78 under the tile Message From Space. Everyone was hyped about Star Wars and all Sci Fi movies were attracting new audiences. Unfortunately this one attracted me. It turned out to not really be a Sci Fi movie but a piece of rip-off crap that was produced only to sucker people in wanting to quench their Star Wars thirst. Think bad "B" movie and multiply it about 10 times. I have only seen it once and that was 27 years ago so there are only a few things that stand out. The first is a big tall ship sailing through space. I don't mean some cool Han Solo giant Falcon type ship, I'm talking an actual wooden Tall Ship with oars, sails and everything, floating through space. My friend and I looked at each other in disbelief. This was the stupidest thing I had ever seen in a so called "legitimate" move. The second thing I remember is getting up half way through the film, and going to get my money back. Unfortunately I had to wait in a long line as a good portion of the audience was doing the same thing. This is something I had never witnessed before or since (although I'm sure it happened with Battlefield Earth but I didn't pay for that toilet tank before walking out). The third thing I remember is vowing to never watch a Vic Morrow movie again. Of course his career was cut short (pun intended) a few years later, perhaps deservedly so for this over-ripe piece of tripe.

Message From Space is truly a one of a kind Star Wars parody that has enough similarities to Star Wars to say "yeah its from the same cut of cheese" but enough differences to make it an entertaining indulgence. I truly love the movie for what it is - a spirited space adventure with battles, swordfights, underdogs and best of all - glowing walnuts! All I can think of is that there has got to be something about Japanese culture that made them say "Hey the chosen warriors will receive glowing walnuts." I loved the walnuts and the space battles. This is truly a greatly under appreciated overbudget Star Wars Parody - The only problem, its impossible to find. I recommend if you can find it - you should absolutely watch it and hopefully you can watch it before your first screening of Star Wars.

Where do I begin. I saw this film, in a theater, when I was 7 years old. It was fresh on the heels of a number of Star Wars rip-offs (i.e. 'Battle Beyond The Stars', etc.) This one, however was different. I hated it when I was a child, but I have grown to love it, in a screwed up Ed Wood kind-of-way. It is a terrible film, but it's so terrible, that it is legendary. Sailboats in space. Villains that make Power Rangers look like Academy Award material. Glowing acorns. Planets with rocket boosters on them. Plot holes you could ride an elephant through. Vic Morrow? Sonny Chiba? You could write a doctoral thesis about what's wrong with this movie, but why? Perhaps the most endearing quality of this film, aside from the raging fires in the vacuum of space, is the fact that a game company bought the rights to use some of the dogfight sequences in a very early laser disc arcade game, which I played at a waterslide park in Utah 1982. Believe it or not, this movie was a TV show in Japan, although it did not last long. Seriously, if you love really bad movies, this is the arc of the covenant.

This movie was ready for release in Japan when Star Wars was released. If this film "rips off" anything, it's "The Seven Samurai". And, since Star Wars is a blatant "rip off" of two or three Japanese films - mostly Kurosawa's "Hidden Fortress", but also somewhat his "Yojimbo" - and took other major action bits - the attack on the Death Star, for instance - from English World War 2 films, accusing *anything* of being "a STAR WARS ripoff" simply shows how little the accuser knows of film history. Extra line. Extra line.

This was one the first of the many Star Wars knockoffs and it does borrow certain key elements (the bad guys operate from a mobile planet which blows up real good at the climax, the spoiled rich girl rides around in a ship that is basically a rectangular version of The Millineum Falcon). Okay, so the effects and art direction are a throwback to the sixties, but it does have some original ideas-the heroes are a motly bunch; all seeking redemption for their wasted lives-, Kinji Fukusaku keeps it belting along at good pace, and once Sonny Chiba starts beating up on the bad guys in the final, there is just no stopping him!

This is one of those jaw dropping bad films that is absolutely hilarious! I had no idea what was happening for a lot of this film(!) but the main story has a planet being taken over by the Gavanas which are nothing more than Clingons. And they send out 8 plastic walnuts to locate the chosen ones that will come and save them. Somehow a good actor like Vic Morrow ended up in this film and the rest are unknowns. At least in America they're unknowns. What can you say? Its a blatant Japanese rip-off of "Star Wars". Why is it that Japan can produce some wonderful and intricate gadgets but just have no clue how to produce decent special effects for films? Vic Morrow has a little robot as a sidekick that says lines like "Hot Dog, Master"! and "Only hurt when laugh" and when Morrow discovers a plastic walnut in his glass of booze he mutters, "I've been selected as a chosen one" which makes his robot react with "Hooray"! There is bright colors used throughout the film and the color red is very prominent. One of the flying ships in the film is just a big boat with sails! In another silly scene Morrow shows up to talk to the head of the Gavanas wearing a Napolean like outfit and challenges one the warriors to a duel! The scene is pointless. The special effects are so cheap and low budget that the monster movies like "Mothra" look like Spielberg made them. These are so terrible that every wire can be seen and every type of ship is a bad plastic model. The sets look like it was made by third grade stage producers. Cheap paint looking very colorful is everywhere. The costumes are everything from Samurai outfits to spandex space outfits and one leading Japanese character looks like a geisha. If Sid and Marty Krofft took acid and got drunk at the same time this is what they might have produced. Peggy Lee Brennan is cute and spunky and I remember her episode of "MASH" and she was fun to watch in this film but when she is flying the space ship and sticks her tongue out of the corner of her mouth to interpret that its serious business, you have to laugh! And Laugh! One of those rare "So bad its good" movies that absolutely requires multiple viewings. Plastic walnuts???