Deep Cult #4

From the director of Battle Royale

Message From Space (1978) - dir. Kinji Fukasuka

Growing up in the early-80s, pop culture was awash with rip-offs and cash-ins on Star Wars. In the absence of the real thing, kids were exposed to an endless parade of imperiled princesses, plucky heros, comedic robots and so on. The cumulative effect, at such a young age, is that they all kind of bled into one giant space opera. A while ago I resolved to pick apart the different threads that make up this sci-fi epic of my mind.

Some of the threads were fairly easy to uncover such as Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century because I was able to distinguish them at the time. Others I was less sure of. Did I ever see Battle Beyond the Stars? After (re)watching it, apparently I did. After watching Message from Space, I'm still not sure if I ever watched it at the time. Seeing I was a huge fan of Monkey and The Water Margin, I think I would have flipped out over it.

The most expensive movie made in Japan at the time, the film is an incoherent mess in the story department mixing story tropes familiar from samurai movies with those found in manga and with many diversions along the way. The set and costume design is fantastic, especially the look of the evil Gavanas. The special effects are less impressive but the space craft design is rather awesome. There is no denying the lo-fi aesthetic looks incredibly cheap compared to the work achieved by ILM but, as with the Godzilla movies, there is a certain charm to them nonetheless.

The metal faced Big Bad

Message from Space is fascinating because it delivers a Star Wars space opera filtered through a Japanese perspective, which really makes it a mirror image of the Lucas film who, lets not forget, was 'inspired' by the films of Akira Kurosawa. It is also possible that Lucas may have been 'inspired' by this film when planning the finale to Return of the Jedi...

Message from Space is currently unavailable on R2 DVD