Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. My name is Rob.
Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And today we got a firecracker for you. We're going to be talking about message from Space. So I suggested doing this on the show after I think it was like a week or two ago, there was one night where I was cooking and we just wanted to put on a movie on mute, and we were looking around for various space operas and this option came up, this nineteen seventy eight Japanese space opera movie.
It looked kind of interesting, so we set it going and it was just a powerful and beautiful assault on the eyes of disco colors, variety show atmosphere and powerful adventures in space. And I was so excited to go back and actually watch it and it did not disappoint.
Yeah, it's a perfect selection for a weird house cinema. Now, some of you might be asking, what is weird house Cinema. Maybe you've seen it popping up in the feed of Stuff to Blow your Mind to Science and Culture podcast. Well, it is a late Friday night celebration of weird films and maybe a dash of science and culture as well. You can think of these episodes as the mysterious space nuts cast off into a science and culture podcast feed as a call to adventure for weird film fans.
Okay, so let's start with the elevator pitch on message from space? What's the deal with this movie?
Okay? Is a nineteen seventy eight a Japanese space opera falling hot on the heels of nineteen seventy seven Star Wars, and basically this is the plot in the Andromeda Galaxy, the peaceful planet of Jelusia has been conquered by the warrior Gavanas Empire, who then turned the planet into a weapon like turn it into a spaceship. The Glusians are peaceful, but they need some help. So what do they do?
They cast out eight space nuts what are they? Liabe seeds to call forth the warriors who will save them and ultimately save the Earth as well.
There is so much examining of nuts in this movie, people just holding nuts up to the light and talking about their nuts.
Yeah, and it's important to note that these nuts glow and with magic. These nuts also just randomly appear. You might be about to eat a tomato and whoa, there's suddenly a space nut in there. You're drinking your eighth bourbon of the day and WHOA, suddenly there's a space nut in there.
Yeah. So I think we should start with the obvious thing, which is that this is a ripoff of Star Wars. This came out in nineteen seventy eight. But it's more than a ripoff of Star Wars. It's also a very zesty expression of sets and costumes and disco love and it has a fabulous energy to it. But it is
a ripoff of Star Wars. Like so many other films in the late seventies, after Star Wars came out You've Got a Star Crash one of my favorites, there were a lot of different Star Wars clones created in different countries around the world. There's famously Turkish Star Wars. I know there are some others.
Battlestar Galactica can kind of be thrown into this general category. Yeah, I think it is important to compare it to these other films, because, for instance, Turkish Star Wars is a ridiculous film that actually takes footage from Star Wars and uses it in the film, So there's like that level of ripping off Star Wars. There's Star Crash, which Star Crash is a lot of fun. This one, Let's see It had David Hasselhoff, Christopher Plummer, Caroline Monroe in it.
But it's entertaining, but it also just feels kind of shoddy the whole way through. It feels very much like a ripoff, you know, I mean.
Yeah, the script feels very much like a first draft. There's a great scene where the movie has Marjo Gortner in it, who is an actor with a unbelievably weird life story. He was like a child tent revival preacher when he was I don't know, seven years old or something, and then he dropped out. I think he went into the the hippie movement and tried to emerge it to have an acting career. So he's in this movie, as I don't know, as a space hero who's got like
a like a ring that blasts people with lasers. And there's a great scene where he's fighting a bad guy and he says, these deadly rays will be your death.
Yeah, it's a It's a fun film in and of itself, but I feel like it is important to sort of pit to to pinpoint Turkish Star Wars and Star Crash and then talk about Message from Space because Message from Space again very much trying to cash in on the Star Wars craze. But it is it is weird enough in its own right, and it is it is different enough and just enough ways to where it does feel
like a self contained, weird universe. I mean, there are times in the film where it does come just a little a little too close to Star Wars and you can't help but snicker at it. But there's just other just crazy stuff in this film.
Well, I mean, it definitely gets close when you're getting into the character names such as Sonny Chiba playing Prince Hans and I can't remember the actress's name at the moment, but you have Princess May in the movie and it, I mean you can see where they're going.
Yeah, there's also a there's a particular musical number that keeps playing in the film that is like as close as possible to John Williams Star Wars as you could get. Maybe too close, I don't know, it feels just way too close.
No, no, no, The very opening of this movie of mess It's from Space, begins with the Princess Leiah theme from Star Wars. I mean it's not exactly, but like the first five or six notes of the melody are identical, and then after that it's still pretty similar, but there are little variations. So you remember the Princess Leiah theme it plays, you know, and and that just comes again
and again throughout the movie. You have what are obviously storm troopers in this movie, but they're kind of metal instead of white.
Well, I will say the storm troopers look really awesome in this They do seem to have two varieties. You have these the sort of you've referred to them as like crab hat troopers, and they look really cool because they have this kind of space Samurai motif and granted, and Samurai motif is part of the armor motif in Star Wars itself, but here it is it is created by by you know, Japanese costume crews, and it seems to take on its own kind of uh, you know,
futuristic air. And then they're also the I think far more terrifying stormtroopers that tend to be in the background behind those guys with these heavy gas masks on and they they look they look really cool, like I was seeing that they have like a real Death Trooper vibe to them. And of course this film Message from Space is also just filled to the gills with space battles, lots of model spaceships, but really well done. I mean they were Star Wars. We have to remember nineteen seventy seven.
Star Wars like really broke through and created like a
new standard for miniature based space action special effects. And this film does not equal that level of special effects, but I feel like it it manages to reach a very comfortable level, like the people who did this were not figuring out for the figuring it out for the first time, so the you know, the explosions, the scale model use, it looks really good in my view, made not the Star Wars level, but but a comfortable level a few steps below.
I think there are a certain type of sci fi space practical effects, especially using miniatures and models, that are really effective despite not looking realistic. They're effective in the same way the sets of the Cabinet of Doctor Kaligari are. So you might have sets in a German expressionist movie that don't look at all like reality they are expressive, they're they're a work of art. And the special effects in these types of sci fi movies I think are
sort of like that. They're you know, you're not going to think, wow, is that a real spaceship flying through space? But they're they're beautiful nonetheless.
Yeah, And and I'll say two other things. One about just the way the set. The sets are fantastic in this film. They're huge, and they often feel like what if you had a Star Wars or a Flash Gordon, you know, space opera set, and then a disco paintball bomb went off, yes, and colored everything. You feel like you're in a kaleidoscope at times.
Yes, if you throw all together Star Wars, Disco seventies Variety show and Japanese decorative motifs all together, and it creates something that is really fabulous to look at throughout.
I'll also say that all of the acting in this film is terrific. Everybody seems to be playing their character as if that character is consistently slightly too drunk, and it's it's fabulous. It creates this kind of unhinged vibe. And it also there are plot choices that seem to work well with this, with this kind of vibe, because generally, in a film like I'm trying to remember the exact you know, prescribed structure, when do your characters usually get
the call to adventure? And when do they accept that call to adventure?
Oh? Well, you know, in the classic story, you would say in Star Wars, it's the hero's journey, right, it's very Joseph Campbell inspired. So I don't know. I mean, fifteen minutes in the hero gets the call to adventure, and then he initially rejects it, but then there's a turning point that burns a bridge to his past, and then he has to come back and accept the call the second time.
Yeah, meanwhile, message from space. Most of the film is devoted to people and slowly receiving the call to adventure and then even more slowly accepting that call. I don't think all calls to adventure have been received and accepted until like the last twenty minutes of the film.
Oh yeah, Sonny Cheeba doesn't show up until like twenty minutes until the end. I can't believe it. And the hilarious thing is, so you take an actor who's as charismatic and wonderful as Sonny Cheeba, and you say, I think the way we should show him is like behind a bulky helmet, so you can't really see his face in a scene that's like shaded with a red gel, so in fact, you can't really see anybody's face. It's like a really really sad just abuse of sunny Chiba. But I don't know it works.
Nonetheless, well, before we get into a more detailed discussion of who's in this and who made it, why don't we have just a little splash of the trailer audio.
Here from a captive planet two million light years away came a desperate plea for help message runs space on the verge of extinction. The leader of the persecuted Delusians sends his beautiful granddaughter, who finds the eight legendary brave adventurers go alone can stop the annihilation.
Do you know where ever it is?
You know where ever lead is?
What you doing now? I'm a human being from the planet never before, As the screen erupted with more specta, more excitement, an international cast headed by Vic Morrole.
I buried my career in.
All it, Babel one can do it.
Just to see it again and chosen by the Goods. I don't know if it comes through in the trailer, but I was thinking the original tagline of this film was Who's shooting it?
Who? It's a question that may arise during the viewing of this film, and I did question a number of times what the message from space? Actually, I guess the space nuts are the message.
From the magic nuts are the message? Yeah, but they are the call to adventure. I mean the scenes where the characters are discussing and debating the call to adventure almost all involved holding up the nuts, examining them, comparing their nuts, and everything like that.
Yeah, yeah, it's there's a lot of space nuts in this All right, let's talk about some of the people involved here. Okay, So first, first of all, let's talk
about the director, Director Kinji of Fukusaku. This is a guy lived nineteen thirty through two thousand and three, directed sixty three projects during his career, and some other titles might jump out to more experienced Japanese cinema fans, but I think the big one here is probably the movie Battle Royale, which came out in the year two thousand.
Oh, I had no idea this was the same guy.
Yeah, this was a film. It was kind of like a pre Hunger Games kind of Hunger Games thing, kind of a mashup of the ideas and Hunger Games and Lord of the Flies, in which a futuristic Japanese government captures a class of ninth grade students ninth graders and forces them to kill each other.
I think there's some kind of implication that this is an expression of political authoritarianism. It's like there's an evil fascist government and the way that they keep the people pacified. I guess, so you keep the people from rebelling is to force one class of ninth graders to kill each other on an island. Yeah, I'm not sure exactly how that works. It seems to connect to some bread and Circus ideas, but yeah, and still not quite clear.
Yeah, I mean it was. It was a controversial film upon its release, but it was highly successful, one of the top ten highest grossing films in Japan, I understand, and just and a hit around the world. It's one I remember watching at some point after its release when it kind of you know, made its rounds over here in the United States. But yeah, it's an interesting film.
And the other interesting thing is he directed it at age seventy, like this was really late in his career and in his life when he puts out this film that I think is is his his greatest achievement in terms of reaching an audience and and probably saying something too about about you know, the you know, the about
the culture and government. I have a feeling it probably speaks more to Japanese film fans than it does to uh, you know, Western fans, unless they're you know, you know, super you know, up to snuff on on you know, stylistic choices and you know, the voice of Japanese centem et cetera. But it's I remember still finding it to be an interesting and disturbing film. I also noted looking around at IMDb that he directed the PlayStation two horror game clock Tower three. Do you remember this one, Joe?
I never played this. I never had a PlayStation two when I was younger.
Ah, well, I I I had one, and I definitely played this game. It was It was a weird survival horror game. Your character doesn't even have a weapon most of the time, so it's a lot of running away from and hiding from monstrous killers.
Hmm, okay, uh kind of Soma like where you're not really fighting, you're just hiding.
A bit but more but more of a horror theme, like more of a this thing is looking for me, and you would like try and distract it with other things in your environment, So a bit of that. Like, it definitely has connections to other survival centered horror games that came out in its wake.
Interesting. I mean, I wouldn't have predicted that from Message from Space, though I don't mean to. I mean, we're gonna make a lot of jokes about Message from Space. But again, I want to emphasize that it I do not necessarily think it is a failure. Like it is funny and absurd in many ways, but it has a really strong momentum, It drives forward, and there's real skill behind the camera in a lot of ways.
Yeah, it's it's consistently entertaining, it's hard to look away, and all the performances are wonderful in their own right. So let's get to one of those performances.
Oh question, question, Okay, what if you made a Star Wars movie but the hero of the movie was Karl from Aquitine Hunger Force. Because that's what we've got here.
Basically, Yeah, we have Vic Morrow as a general Garuda, which is a great name as well, but tying in a you know, an Asian mythical creature into his title here. Yeah, Vic Morrow, I guess you would describe him as Carl esque. You might describe him as roused our esque or oh, what's the name of the actor your hero from Halloween three season of The Witch?
Oh, Tom Atkins.
Yeah, that's kind of Tom Atkins vibe as Strawberry Burt Reynolds. Yeah, so you've probably seen Vic morro in something. He was a staple of film and television for decades, from a small part in nineteen fifty five Blackboard Jungle to the tragic nineteen eighty three production of Twilight Zone, the movie in which a helicopter accident claimed his life and the life of a couple of child actors as well. But prior to that he was involved in a lot of mainstream,
often TV projects, and often international projects. And I think I probably know him best from some of his appearances in international B movies all particular note there was both of them directed by Zog Castellari. The first is nineteen eighty one's The Last Shark, which is a Jaws ripoff an Italian Jar Jaws rip off in which Moro basically plays Quint from Jaws.
This is funny because it hits on the two big ones. Which movie do you think was ripped off? More? Star Wars or Jaws? There may be the two most ripped off movies in history. Oh maybe add on Aliens those three.
Yeah, I feel like it's got to be Jaws, because with Jaws, all you really need to do is get some people in swimsuits at the beach or out on the water, and you just have that one special effect you've got to shoot for. But the special effects threshold is I feel higher with I don't know.
I mean there's a certain threshold with shark movies, and the Last Shark does not appear to pass it. They have a shark puppet that does does not look good folks. It has a kind of funny bulge in its neck that gives an almost frog like throat sack kind of appearance, but could also be interpreted as just a jowly old man.
Yeah, and I also remember in this one again it's it's very Jaws esque, like it feels very much like a remake in many respects, But there are scenes where the shark is like attacking a boat and it's like an explosion, Like they clearly just set off an explosive device in a boat to show what the shark's attack would do.
There are good scenes like this in Message from Space too, though with the scenes where things just blow up for no reason. You can tell something gets like hit with the sword and it blows up.
Yeah. Yeah, if you like explosions, you will love Message from Space.
But the there was another Castellari movie.
Oh yeah yah. He directed a film titled The Bronx Warriors, which which is fabulous. It was featured on Mystery Science Theater three thousand back in the day. It also stars one of my favorite Italian B movie actors, George Eastman. But it's a yeah, post post apocalyptic New York City hell movie, strongly influenced by Escape from New York and The Warriors. It's a fun one to watch because they
filmed a lot of it in New York City. So if you if you have enjoyed going to New York in the past and hoped to return in the future like me, or perhaps you live there, it's a fun It's a fun one to watch because they filmed some key scenes out on Roosevelt Island, and you can go
to Roosevelt Island today. You can take the you can even take the cable car over there, and you can see some of the very places they filmed, including the Wrenwick Ruins, which looked the same today essentially as they looked when they filmed The Bronx Warriors.
I've never thought of this before, but somebody should put together a B movie tour of New York. It's just all of the best locations and sites from the iconic B movies we love.
That would be That would be wonderful. There's so much you could cover, and I imagine a lot of it has vanished at this point, but some of it's still there, like the Renwick Ruins. So anyway, Vic morro is in this and he plays a mercenary enforcer named Hammer, which I think we can easily trace the DNA of that character to Escape from New York like it's it's clearly, you know, patterned on the Levan Cleef character in Escape from New York.
Oh yeah, okay, now, maybe we should mention a few more of the actors. Of course, we've already talked a bit about Sonny Cheeba, who is a fabulous actor. I think a lot of American audiences might know him best for some of the later performances in his career in American movies, like he was in Kill Bill Part one playing Torri Hanzo. He's fabulous in that part. He's also got a part in The Fast and the Furious three Tokyo Drift, which is a beautiful fantasy film.
I was going to ask you about this because I haven't seen any of the Fast Furious movies, but I know you were a connoisseur.
I would say, and I'm not the first to observe this. Other people have said the same. The best thing to do with The Fast and the Furious movies is stick to the odd numbered ones. So, like, the first one is bad, but it has a very seductive place in history. It evokes this just like pre nine to eleven, you know, New Millennium kind of thing where everything was a little bit sweaty and orange and like, I don't know, we were just going to be racing cars for the rest
of eternity. It's also I think it's about stealing DVD VCR com okay, and then the second movie, I don't remember it's just like a crime car movie. It doesn't have Vin Diesel in it, so it loses a lot of the appeal. Then the third one decides it's very different. The third one suddenly becomes kind of an otherworldly fantasy film set in Japan. There's it has a great villain named the Drift King who has this perfect villain face. He's wonderful. And after I saw that one for weeks,
I was just boy crazy for the Drift King. And then the fourth one's no good. The fifth one things then the rock shows up and things really get moving. But I would say, actually, of the entire series, the third one is my favorite, even though it doesn't have Vin Diesel in it. Which one is Tokyo Drift though, that's the third one, This Tokyo Drift, that's the one with Sunny Chiba.
And it's centered around a scooty thing you do with the car, right, Yeah, it's like what a Toko drift is.
It is about drifting. Drifting is the major theme of the movie, and it's about how you make a car move laterally to the direction the wheels normally go in.
Okay and so he plays a villain of some kind of a heavy or a wise hero.
He's like a I think he's a mafia boss basically.
Okay, that that makes sense.
But Sunny Cheeba is he's a wonderful actor, amazingly charismatic, just a fantastic you know, you can't take your eyes off him on screen. And it's again, I feel like it's kind of sad in this movie that he doesn't show up until toward the end, and even then he doesn't get a lot of close ups and he's behind a lot of just equipment that's around his face. I just feel like, you know, you have Sonny Chiba on cast, you should you should give him a little more, a little more intimacy.
Yeah, because it does make no mistake. Sonny Chiba is Slash was an international martial arts star. Like he was very much a guy who made a huge name for himself in Japan and then that and then then was able to cross over into America. Like One film of note is nineteen seventy four's The Street Fighter, which went on to become like a big grindhouse hit in the
United States. It's notable for a number of reasons, mainly because it's just Sonny cheeba, you know, kicking butt the whole time, but it features X ray finishing moves where like he punches somebody and then it's and then it's an X ray footage of that skull cracking, which is fabulous. This is something that I think would much later get picked up by the Mortal Kombat video game. That's used in other films as well. But it's a great special.
Effect that's really good. Now. One of the other performances that I would like to call out from this movie is the actress playing Princess Maya, Peggy Lee Brennan, who didn't really do much else. I looked her up. She was in an episode of Mash, she was in a few movies. She didn't have a very extensive film career, but she has the most joyful, rambunctious Penny Marshall Laverne Chipmunk energy in this movie.
Yeah, it might be my favorite performance in the film. It's very spunky, and like all the performances, it feels like the character is consistently just a little bit too drunk, but in a good way. Like every time she's on the screen, there's this this kind of manic energy that that that works really well.
She likes.
She brings an energy to the to the room or the spaceship cockpit, whichever it may be. Oftentimes in this film you have to stop and ask yourself, am I supposed to be in space right now? Because you'll feel like you're in a in like an overly decorated home room in a high school, or or you know, or some other strange location. But any rate, anytime Peggy ly Brennan is in the room, it's it's gonna be fun.
Peggy le Brennan is never on the mix setting. She is always on the liquefy setting. Yeah.
Now, another star of note, a huge star of Japanese cinema and also a crossover star in this is hero Yuki Sonata, playing Shiro the rough Rider, one of the two basically one of the two Luke Skywalkers in the film. Yes, he would go on to become a major Japanese star. He starred in such major Western productions as The Wolverine. He's in HBO's West World, He's in Sunshine, He's an Avengers Endgame, he is going to play Scorpion in the
next Mortal Kombat movie that they are making. And the crazy Thing about him is you look up pictures of him and he's like, you know, super handsome Japanese actor. He is sixty years old and it looks like he's maybe thirty five or something. You know, this guy has to be a vampire. That's my only guess.
He drank from the Kiyanu fountain.
Yeah, yeah, Sonata is Yeah, he's keeping it together. He is my new aging hero, like I want to age like Sonata does.
Well, I feel like maybe it's time to jump into a full breakdown of the plot to the extent that that's possible, because this movie is, like I said, it's very fun, it's a feast for the eyes, but the plot is borderline incomprehensible. I tried to pay close attention so I could explain what's happening, but it's rough.
Yeah I have. I watched this with my wife the other day and we did an Amazon Prime watch party where we invited some folks from the Stuff to Blow your Mind a discussion module to join us. You know, whoever was available to on short notice and had the necessary technologies and accounts to do so. So we had a handful of people in there and consistently the question
that came up was what is happening? What right? And then also just trying to keep count of how many space nuts were supposed to be sent out, how many had actually been received, and then how many had been accepted.
So, okay, okay, sort of luck.
And breaking this down, Joe, I wish you luck.
Well, you've got to come with me. I'm not going to do it alone.
I'll try and help, but you know, it's it's it's more of a stream of consciousness sort of thing.
Okay, okay, okay. So we're gonna start at the beginning, the beginning of this film. As we've said, we open with the Princess Leiah theme from Star Wars. It's just playing the Star Wars music and then you get this bone rattling, deep voice narration that's kind of Don Lafontaine meets James Earl Jones. It sounded so familiar to me. I was like, I know, I have heard this voice before. And then you called out what who it might be? I'm not sure, but did you look this up?
I haven't looked it up, but there's this I mean I've looked I've looked it up in the past. But basically there was this cool mix that I came across several years ago, that that took some audio samples from an old Solar System documentary in which this very smooth, velvety voice is talking about the rings of Saturn.
It sounds exactly like the same guy, so I really wonder if it's the same narrator. But anyway, the narrator explains the situation here almost as if the opening narration could have been a text crawl that goes across the screen. And so what's covered in this narration, Well, we find out that what you're looking at at the beginning is the planet Jelusia, which I have to say does not look inhabitable. It looks like a rocky hell without an atmosphere.
It reminds me of the caves of Mars in Santa Claus versus the Martians, because you also have an old guy who's a lot like Chochum in Santa Claus versus the Martians. You know who. In Santa Claus versus the Martians, he's talking about the children of Mars. They have no Santa And in this he's talking about all the bad stuff that the Govnant the Govanas are doing to them.
Right so the Govanas are bad. They have conquered the planet Jelusia. We're told that the Govanas are steel skinned, so we mentioned earlier they're like stormtroopers, but instead of white armor, got this like metal and green armor.
And silver paint on their skin.
Yes. Yes, And then there is a tribe of people who wear wreaths on their heads just like leaves, and I guess these are supposed to be the Jelusians. They're kind of space druids in a way.
Uh.
They don't like being conquered by the Govanas. I think maybe the Govanas are going to kill them eventually. I wasn't exactly clear on that, but they want to get rid of their Gavana problem. So their leader is a guy I think named Keto. He's also just called grandfather, so usually he's grandfather. This is character, yes, and the elder explains that their only hope is to throw eight magic nuts into space and these eight magic nuts are called liabe Seeds, and they will seek out heroes who
can help the Jelusians fight for their freedom. And a couple of the Jelusians go out to follow the magic nuts I guess to figure out who they're seeking out, and these Jelusians who followed them are Princess Emmerlita and a strong young fighter named Uraco, and they fly off in a space ship that looks like it could be like the Santa Maria. It's a wooden galleon with masts and rigging, which is a great.
Choice, straight up a wooden sailing ship. Yeah, flying through space. It's one of the just it is one of the truly weird and wonderful choices in this movie. To make one of the space ships be a ship, be a sailing vessel.
One thing that I think is very interesting. A ripoff choice that was made here was to take the Princess Lea character from Star Wars and just split her character in half into two different characters. So what are the characteristics of Lea and Star Wars. Well, she sort of
has two different faces she presents to the world. One is the sort of sort of passive, elegant, you know, white robe, headgear, soft spoken, and then her other half is she's a tough, spunky fighter who sticks up for Well, what they did is they just split that into two different characters. So Princess emmer Aalita is wearing a long white robe, and she's very sedated. She you know, seems to be on Xanax or something. And then the other half is the character Maya in this movie, who is
the tough, spunky fighter half of Princess Leah. And I wonder what prompted that decision to just like make it two characters instead of one.
M Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I didn't think about this as much when I was watching it, because certainly the princess imer Alita is is kind of your stereotypical princess character.
You know, she just needs rescuing.
Yeah, she just needs rescuing, She needs help, and she reacts to things going on around her and otherwise doesn't really affect the plot all that much, while while the other character that the Maya is going to be, you know, far more action oriented.
Yeah, she's the end of the garbage fly boy half of La. Yeah. So then we meet the real bad guys, the Govanas. As we've explained, great costumes, storm troopers with horned helmets, all that stuff. Their leader, Rock Saya, is some kind of king. They refer to him as your majesty. We've talked about his amazing horseshoe crab helmet, it's got
the legs sticking out the side. And Darth Crabhead here is very angry that the space galleyon is leaving Jelucia, and he explains, and I wrote this quote down, I know they're going out of the universe to seek help. Whoa, they're going there out of the universe.
There are a lot of moments in this film where I feel like there is either some confusion or some translation issues concerning galaxy, Solar System, and universe. Yes, what things are are you capable of exiting and injuring? And which ones even make sense in a far future space opera?
Yes, I think it doesn't really make sense in this movie, But somebody should make a movie about characters who go out of the universe to seek help. Oh, but then we haven't mentioned this character yet. After this, we meet the who for me is maybe actually the absolute star of the film, the greatest of all time, Darth Crabhead's mother, who is also painted silver and red. She has no teeth.
She likes to like call about things. Darth Crabhead and mother are essentially giving a speech about how together we will bring order to the galaxy.
Yeah, it's it's a wonderful and weird choice that I can only I can only imagine is drawing upon some existing tropes in Japanese storytelling in Japanese cinema. I don't know. I like I say, I'm not an expert on Japanese film by any stretch, but I know we do see. I mean, you see a lot of witch like characters and wise old women and dangerous wise old women show
up in stories around the world. But you know, I think, I think of how you often see this trope in Miyazaki films, generally oftentimes on both sides, where you have the good and the bad duality represented in old women. So so I don't know this. Yeah, this grandmother is very interesting though, because she she kind of has that Bobby Yaga look with a big fake nose blue to her face, and she has the most awesome death metal
wheelchair I've ever seen. It seems to be made out of of bleached xenomorph bones and is made for gladiatorial combat.
It's wonderful, It's really good. There are actually a couple of evil crones in this movie. We'll get to another one in a bit, But so Okay, So after all that, we meet the we meet the heroes of Julusia, we meet the bad guys. Then we cut to somewhere else. I think it's some other planet. It's not Earth, it's somewhere I don't remember the name of it. You cut to a rich girl in a luxury spaceship, and this
is finally Maya. I don't think she's actually a princess, but she's kind of a princess because she is like the heiress to a fortune. She's got a very rich father who I don't think we ever meet.
But in a way, it's kind of fitting that. Like she's a Western style princess. So she's not an actual princess. She just comes from privilege and money.
Yeah, exactly. But she's in her luxury spaceship which is being chauffeured around through space, and she looks out the window and sees space fireflies. I think we're told that they're actually radioactive atomic dust. That's what the attendant says.
So you catch him in your hand, is what you did, right?
They do that later, and then the luxury ship gets buzzed by a couple of cocky space racers that are known as rough Riders. Basically again, these are a couple of guys from the Fast and the Furious franchise but in space and their names are Aaron and Shiro.
Yeah, and Hiro of course is played by Sonata and the other one. I looked him up. He's basically an American or a Western actor that they had some other credits, but not you know, clearly I didn't add him to the notes, so he didn't impress.
Me all that much. Yeah, he didn't really stick in the mind. No offense if you're listening. But Mayo, we find out, is also a rough rider at heart. Because she does not want to be sitting there in the Chauffeur luxury spaceship. She tries to grab the wheel and like race around with the other two guys. As I said earlier, she has a very For some reason, she really reminded me of Penny Marshall from Laverne and Shirley. Yeah.
But anyway, the rough riders, Aerin and Shiro end up crashing their ships while they are playing chicken with the space police. And when the two of them get they like jump out of their ships with fire extinguishers and start yea dousing them and they examined the hulls of their crash ships, and they find what there are magic nuts inside our ships, so they've each got a magic nut. Then we cut to somewhere else entirely. I don't know if this other place is supposed to be Earth or
some other planet. I'm not sure what it is. But we meet Vic Morrow now now again. Try to picture a gruff, mustachioed, hard drinking sort of Carl from Aquitine General.
Yeah, the hard drinking is key, because I feel like almost every scene he's in he is is he he's nursing, you know, a finger of Scotch or bourbon or something, has some sort of a dark amber liquid in a glass that he has almost finished.
He's general getting hammered, and he's in the middle of conducting a rocket launch. That is is we find out a funeral for a robot. Yes, yes, so his his first robot was named Beba one, and somehow this robot was destroyed. But he loves and cares for Beba one, and so he put Beba One's robot corpse into this spaceship to send it into space to become a satellite that's orbiting the planet. A sort of as a Viking funeral for his dead robot. He keeps it. He always pronounces it robot.
Yeah, like like Zoidberg does in Futurama.
Yeah. But then he also he gets chewed out by the high command. They're like, what a wasteful use of a rocket to just give a funeral to a robot. No one cares about robots. You have done wrong. But this doesn't.
He loves robots. He is a friend of robot kind is Beba too points out, and I got the sense more than friends. I feel like like there's yes, there's a romance.
Yeah, I agree, Beba. So he's got a new robot. It's Beba too. Beba one was the one that's a satellite now and Beba two is constantly saying, like, you know, you have done us such an honor, You've been so kind to robots and so Later, General Garuda is getting drunk in a bar. As we mentioned, he's getting drunk in every scene he's in, and he finds a magic nut in his whiskey. Now I have to say, also, this bar that he's in is kind of the high
light of the movie. Imagine a really raunchy disco most slicely cantina with variety show fire underneath it.
Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's quite a scene. It was one of I think it was the first scene where we're like, oh, yeah, this this, this movie's got it like this this this, this one is is definitely setting itself apart from Star Wars.
Yeah. And so they Gruda and Baba two go outside and Baba one looks up and sees something in the sky and he says, look, Beaba one has now become a star. And Vick Morrow's like, eh, forget it, forget it, Baba two, and Baba two says, Baba two cannot forget. No robot can forget your kindness to robot kind It's wonderful. Uh.
I have to say, first of all, Baby Ta two looks amazing in this, Yes, and like there's certainly the Star Wars esque in its design, but it's a it's it's a cool costume. It's you know, evidently like a little person wearing a robot costume. But it looks really good. I I totally bought it as a robot. But then we have to say something about General Garuda's costuming in this,
because he's consistently in an amazing costume drifter. Well, yeah, well sometimes he's in kind of the space admiral costume, and then he puts on this enormous coat and hat that I felt like he was. It was like he was leaving to go try out for a role as a as a time lord.
You know.
It had kind of a doctor flo vibe to it. And then later he has this sil like unflattering silver shining costume that he ends up wearing as well. But he's he's always wearing something interesting or a little too interesting.
Oh there's one scene where he's dressed as Austin Powers, just full of Austin Powers. It's like a oh he had a neck red velvet suit with the frilly cravat. Yeah, but so we got to go back. We got to do it in order so somebody else finds a nut. We've got to chart all of the nut findings. This this shady guy named Jack. I don't remember how we meet him. I guess he's friends with the two rough riders who are trying to earn money now to repair their ships. The shady guy named Jack is also trying
to get money. He's this dude who's dressed kind of like a Fredo Corleone type in a barbershop quartet hat and he finds a nut when he bites into a tomato like an apple and cracks a tooth on a nut inside. But the movie doesn't even stop to examine why was he biting into a tomato like an apple? Is that a thing people do?
I mean, it's a fruit. Go for it, you know.
Also, I have to say about Jack. If you're picturing anytime we say anything about Jack, you have to know that when in whatever scene we're talking about, he has also mentioned at least two or three times that something is going to get them three years in space jail.
One of the endits. So Jack has consistently amusing on an also semi obnoxious character who's clearly supposed to be some sort of a criminal. And I think the Fredo Corleoni comparison is totally correct. But I also feel like this has to be I'm mostly sure that this is a standard character trope in Japanese cinema because I feel like I've seen this exact character in other films. He has a real loop in the third quality, which is this kind of criminal or spy character you see pop
up in an early Miyazaki film. So I feel like this is a stock character that we have encountered in Message from Space.
He brings a different level of I don't know what you would call it. He mugs for the camera in a way that no other characters do. Nobody else like makes a face straight into the camera lens. But Jack does.
And I kept expecting him to die or that he would turn out to be like a minor adversary. But no, he's I mean, he's got a he's got a lot of space nuts.
He's good to Oh, Rob, were you doubting the nuts? You can't deny the nuts. He's got a nut.
I doubted the nuts a lot during this film because it didn't seem like they were working.
The longest you got to put your faith in the nuts. They're not going to find somebody who's not a hero of Jelusia.
May the nut be with you.
So for some real I can't remember why they do this, but for some reason, some of the heroes go swimming in space, like they fly their spaceships up to where the space fireflies are, and then Maya and the two rough Riders and maybe also Jack. I don't remember who all goes, but they get out of their space ships and then they just go swimming in space, like paddling their arms, I think, not quite realizing that you can't do that in space because there's nothing to push against.
I have to say. So this film does have moments where they seem to acknowledge that, yes, you're weightless in space, but there are moments where it seems like there's this universal gravity in space, which I'm kind of nostalgic for.
Like I think it was episodes of ThunderCats that I watched as a kid where they had some scenes where space is treated like a place where there is a firm up and down and if you're pushed out of a spaceship, you will fall, And I kind of want to see that explore, Like it's completely ridiculous, it has no basis in actual reality, but I kind of want to watch something now that is clearly set in a universe that has this kind of wonky use of gravity.
Okay, So at this point in the movie, we are sort of assembling the Nut heroes, Like all the Nut heroes are getting together and meeting one another. So we have Princess Imoralita and Urako, the Jelusians from the beginning, they meet up with the two space racers Aaron and Shiro, with Jack, the Fredo Corleone Creep with Maya, and with General Garuda and Beba two, so they're all together now.
And then there is one of the strangest parts of the movie was this weird subplot where the Jilusians Uraco and Emmeralita and Jack, the three of them like go off into the desert to hunt for other nutbearers and they think they can find somebody else who's got a magic nut and they meet with this old Crone in a hut and it turns out to be a trap because this evil Crone and her son who is just Greedo. He's Greedo from Star Wars.
They try to get kind of a creature from the Black Lagoon vibe from him.
Yes, yes, Black Lagoon and Greedo. They try to kill Uraco and then they're going to force Emmeralita to marry her Gredo son. She explains he was born on the planet Pluto. No one loves him.
Yeah, I love that. Like his whole weird appearance is based on the fact, well, he was born in Pluto.
Okay, so oh no, Emeralita is gonna have to marry the Greedo son. But then Imperial stormtroopers burst in. They just like kick through the wall and they kill Grito and they kidnap the Crone and Immeralita and Urako is left behind. He's left for dead, but you find out
he's still alive. And then there's a sequence where I would say, in one of the droopiest parts of the movie, where where the only one of the only parts where the where it really kind of lags is suddenly we have dream sequences, multiple dream sequences for multiple Nut heroes.
We see their dream where they get killed, like, uh, there's some dream where immer Aalita is stabbed by a crabhead stormtrooper and it makes a sound like a ketchup bottle squirt and and and we find out it's just all these the different Nut heroes like Maya and the rough Riders hanging out in this house together and they're all having the same dream.
Yeah.
Though it is in the sequence that we first see Maya in a new outfit where she's dressed like Luigi and I like that. But then we cut to the bad guys, so Xa, remember Darth Crabhead and his mother. They have Princess Imilita and the Crone on their spaceship, and Roxeya and mother use a machine to mind read the Krone and then through examination of her memories, they see planet Earth, and they immediately decide we must have planet Earth, we must conquer its beauty.
Yes, this green planet, yeah, I refer to.
So they fly the planet Jelusia itself through space to Earth. There's like a part where it shows the planet just kind of like farting. It's like all this green gas is coming out of one side of it and that's making it fly through space. And then it reaches Earth and they fight a big battle.
Yeah, and it is a big battle. I mean, there are at least two huge space battles in this picture, and this is one of them. And it's great. It's the use of scale models and explosions like actual fireworks, except most to the time they look pretty good. You don't get that sort of gamera bad gamera movie a fact, where like an oversized flame is melting a toy truck.
Right.
Yeah, I mean I thought the space battles look look pretty good in this film, but it's Yeah, it's a huge battle.
It's wonderful, and of course Earth loses. The Govanas win and the Earth Suddenly the movie gets very weirdly, like the scope changes. We get this geopolitical view and everything moves very fast, and we learn about is there narration I don't recall. Somehow we learn about there's a new sort of a premiere elected to govern all of Earth. And this guy he comes to oh, General Garuda Vic Morrow is now on Earth, still drinking. I think he's
just like in a restaurant somewhere drinking. And this guy comes to him and he's like, Earth is on the verge of annihilation. We can't let that happen. We need your help. He appeals to General Garuda not to abandon his magic nut response ability. And then meanwhile, I don't remember exactly how this happens, but some of the other Nut heroes crash on a red planet that is not Mars. They say it is part of the Bernardi Star system.
They don't explain what that is, but here they finally, in the last act of the film, meets Sonny Chiba. And the deal with Sonny Chiba is he's playing a good Gavana Skuy, so he's the same species as the steel skinned guys who are conquering everything, but he's a good one and his name is Prince Hans. He explains that he is heir to the Gavana's throne and that Rokxea was my undoing.
Yeah, so he has like a horn broken off on his helmet that helps signify all of.
This, right. So then the next so I guess he joins, and somehow we find out he's a nut hero as well, and then we cut back to the bad guys. So I think the Earthlings have like three days to negotiate terms with the Gavanas for their surrender, and the person chosen to go up to negotiate with with Darth and Mother is Vic Morrow is General Garuda. He gets sent up.
He's decked out wearing the full Austin Powers outfit, and they for some reason, the bad guys at this point have Vegas Jack captured and one of them insults him somehow, like the crabheads start laughing at Vegas Jack, and this makes Vic Morrow like incensed, and he stands up for Jack's honor because he is an Earthling and challenges an entree level level stormtrooper to a duel, which is one of the strangest parts of the movie.
The yeah, the this du I do have to say this, when we're comparing this film to Star Wars, I think it arguably has better sword play than Star Wars does.
Than the first first Star Wars.
The first Star Wars film for nineteen seventy seven is not known for its its wonderful play. I mean, yes, it's a very memorable lightsaber battle, but the actual fight choreography is not top notch.
No, if you compare it, like, you watch the lightsaber battles in Empire and they're exquisite, amazing. Yeah, you watch the one in the original Star Wars. It's just it's it's kind of weak by comparison.
Yeah, I've seen people try to explain it reht kind of by saying, well, you have to realize that Obi Wan and Darth Vader at this point they were just so serious about killing each other. There was no stylistic flourish to their to their the way they combat at each other. But that's just that's too much of a stretch, even for me.
Yeah, I don't buy it. But this isn't a duel with swords. This is a duel with laser guns.
Oh yeah, yeah, well, yeah, that's right. We have the cowboy style laser gun duel. It's later that we have a lot of sword play, yeah, with Sunny Chieba's character. Yeah, and that's all terrific.
Yeah, it's good. But of course Vic Morrow he wins. Even though the other guy tries to dishonorably cheat and shoot Vic Moore in the back, he misses, and then and then he loses the duel. Vic Morrow shows mercy and doesn't kill the stormtrooper. But then, of course Darth Crabhead is cruel himself and he says, I was disgraced by this coward and he kills him and he says like.
He throws the gun over his head. Yeah, and there's this wonderful scene where like the stormtrooper behind him is like scrambling to catch it. It feels like like kind of a blooper. But they're like, we got it. We're not reshooting that.
Yeah. And then and then rok Seya, he says, as a demonstration of our power, just to like show Earth we mean business, we're going to destroy the moon. And then they do.
It's a warning shot and they blow up Earth's moon and they be like, all right, tell us, well's what's next. So that, of course is ridiculous for a number of reasons. Clearly, destroying the Earth's moon would be far far more than just a mere warning shot.
Yeah, I mean I think Earth would basically be screwed. And I like, how after this, of course, the bad guy's in the end, and it's like, oh, everything's going to be great. But the elimination of Earth's moon, just the effects on the tides like that would have disastrous effects on coastal marine ecosystems would probably cascade out to
other ecosystems. There would just be mass extinctions. But then also I was reading an article about this on the Royal Museum's Greenwich website that was addressing what might happen if there were no moon. Without a moon, it seems like the Earth's tilt on its axis as it goes around on its orbital plane might not be stabilized, so suddenly like you might not get seasons, or the seasons wouldn't be consistent, and you just have like ridiculous unpredictable
levels of climate change. It would you know, absolutely decimate life on Earth.
And then also doesn't the Gavana's planet blow up in close proximity to Earth?
Oh yeah, I haven't even talked about like the fragmentation of what would happen if you blow up the Moon blow up this other planet. So I think not the most plausible part of the movie.
Yeah.
So, eventually, through some other plot machinations, all of our heroes end up getting captured by the Gavanas, and we learned that there was a trader among the Nut heroes, and it was Uraco, the Jilusian warrior.
From the beginning, I was so utterly shocked that it wasn't Jack. I just knew it was going to be criminal Jack there.
Yeah, I was.
I even called it. I'm like, it's Jack, It's got to be Jack. But it wasn't.
No, Fredo was loyal. I knew it was you, Roco. And but then Roco, he like his heart is melted when he sees the nuts again, they all like talk about their nuts and hold the nuts up, and he discovers that Beba two, the robot, has his own nut, and it seems like the fact that even a robot could have a magic nut melts Urraco's heart, and it turns him back to be loyal to the nut heroes again.
Yeah, so he makes it he's ultimately a terrible trader because he he'd he barely betrays.
Yeah. So then there's a big battle. All the heroes are trying to escape and it comes down to a duel between Hans played by sunny Chiba and the bad guy Roxeya the Darth Crab. They have a great sword fight. Hans calls Roxeia a dog that deserves to die. And it's kind of hard to explain what's going on with their swords. So they're not lightsabers, they're just regular metal swords. But whenever they stab someone with one of these metal swords,
a flash of colored light shoots out. So I'm not sure exactly how these things are supposed to work.
Some sort of light injection saber or something.
Yeah, but of course Hans wins, sunny Chiba stabs Darth. He throws them out the window, like literally smashes through the glass. And I don't know if they're supposed to be in the vacuum of space or on Jelusia. I guess it's on Jelusia, but Jelusia doesn't look like it has an atmosphere once again. And then finally they're escaping the planet Jelusia as it's exploding and they see the grand father from the beginning, remember him, and yeah, He's like, Immi, Alita,
do not weep at my death. He says, you young people, you have to find another planet. You got to go to another corner of the stars and find a new planet, establish a civilization where joy and peace will rain. Sounds easy.
Yeah, yeah, I mean that would be the sequel, I guess. But but I mean also it does tie into this, if you know, if we're to discuss the themes of this movie. Granted, this one's a little light on thematics, I think, but for the most part, it's saying war is bad, peace is good, and you know, you should, you should, you know, focus on building a peaceful future. Yeah. I feel like these these vibes are are are fairly obvious in this film.
I think there's something about redemption too. We see redemption of Raco after the robot nut melts his heart, and then we also see a redemption for Vegas. Check like he's kind of a heel most of the movie, but then in the end he comes through and he's a good guy and he wants to be a part of building the new Jelusia. And Immeralita tells Jack the Fredo character, that he would be wonderful on the new Jelusia. Everybody's
going to Jelusia and it's going to be great. And then finally, one of the best moment at the end of the film, I thought was that Beba too, the robot, somehow his hand gets blown off. I don't remember how that happens, but he laments that he can't go back to Earth to get a purple heart for his wound. And then vic Morrow's like, forget about your purple heart. There are more beautiful dreams in space, so keep your eyes on the stars. And that that's pretty much the end.
There's never a dull moment getting there though, you know it's you're confused at times, but that you're always entertained. Let's see. So we've discussed some of the themes in this film. We've discussed some of the science already about the idea of destroying Earth's noon as a warning shot and how devastating that would be.
Yeah, that's you destroy you Earth's moon. That's not the warning shot. That's pretty much do death blow. Let's see some other things we might briefly touch on. I mean, there is a hint of pan spermia and the idea of sending out space nuts to sort of grow heroes and bring them back to you. Pant spermia being the idea that life could originate on one planet and spread to another planet or moon or what have you via
ejecta from that planet. I think there's an interesting theme that is sort of implied in the fact that we have a lot of these people who are maybe not very serious. They're kind of thrill seekers, kind of screw ups who get nuts, and then when they get a nut, that the nut causes them to mature and to accept
responsibility and to become a hero. And this is a theme that you find in a lot of these classic adventures, that like having responsibility put on your shoulders causes you to to grow up and to become and to learn to sacrifice for others.
Yeah. Yeah, I mean even Vic Morro's character Garuda, you know, he's like an old, old, kind of jaded character, but no, he gets the he gets the nut and it it reignites his passion, you know.
What do you make of General Garuda's love of robots? Like why does he treat robots like people? But nobody else does? I guess the nut heroes also they respect Beba two. But the idea is that like his commanding officer is like mad at him for respecting robots.
I don't know. It's it's on one hand, it forecasts the direction they took Lando Carissian in the Solo movie that came out, where it's implied that he has this very close relationship with this with this particular robot.
You know. Oh I didn't see that. I didn't get to that part.
Oh no, I mean I enjoyed Solo. It's got it's got a lot of good stuff in it. Oh yeah, but one of them is the the Lando loves Robots plot element, which which which I liked. But yeah, I don't know exactly why why Garuda is singular in his love of robots. Is it just because he's he's like, he's worked, he's served alongside robots. I don't know.
He's this battle hardened, grizzled, old tough, hard drinking, you know, leathery man who has a soft spot in his heart for robots. Yeah, maybe maybe it's because he can't get along with people, but he needs companionship, and a robot can sort of fill that void. The the robot is the peg that fits his hole.
Now, another another part of the plot that we might briefly discuss some science around is the idea of taking another planet and turning it into a spaceship, of moving a planet from one system to another, in this case, to conquer Earth.
I think you would encounter some severe problems about this. So the idea is clearly that there's a reaction engine. It's like throwing gas off one side of the planet like a rocket to move the planet. I don't know how much gas you'd have to throw off to like move a planet at a reasonable speed to get there within people's lifetimes and to leave the gravity of the host star. It seems like actually the more reasonable proposition
would be to move the star. And most of the propositions I've seen over time to navigate around space like that are actually to create stellar engines, not planetary engines,
like one idea. I don't know if this is actually all that plausible, but one that's at least been proposed is something called a Scatov thruster, and that would be something that would be built by like a Kardashev level two type civilization that creates this giant mirror that you would put on one side of a star that would reflect the radiation pressure that the star puts out back at the star, thus moving it. And then of course if the star moves, it carries with it everything that's
orbiting around it. So you could at least potentially, you know, in theory, move a whole solar system somewhere else.
That way, so scientifically grounded is that you say. So. Message from Space wonderfully weird, very watchable, entertaining film, ultimately very lighthearted. Like my son who is in third grade, he didn't watch all of this, but he came in for a little of it and he was loving it. He was like, this is great, look at all these space ships.
Yeah.
So, if you want to check out Message from Space yourself, it is, as of this recording available on Amazon Prime, at least in the United States. You can like stream it there. You can also pick it up as a very nice DVD or Blu ray with some wonderful cover art. So there are numerous ways to watch Message from Space to receive the message from space, and yeah, we recommend.
It, Mother commands you.
Yes, all right, Well, we're gonna go ahead and wrap up this episode of Weird House Cinema right here. Obviously, we'd love to hear from everybody about this. What are your thoughts on Message from Space? Do you have some additional thoughts on Japanese cinema, Perhaps you're super immersed in the realm of Japanese cinnamon, you have some thoughts on some of the things we pinpointed in this film.
Do you have a favorite Star Wars ripoff?
Yeah, favorite Stars Star Wars ripoff, favorite Sony Chiba film. We'd love to hear your thoughts on any and all of it. And also, you know, if there are weird films out there you'd like us to consider in the future, let us know about that. Like I say, we try and keep the idea of weird film kind of broad, you know, like it's not necessarily We're not necessarily talking about bad films or good films. Cheap films are expensive films, you know. Art films are just you know, pure popcorn fodder.
We try and cast the net wide and see what kind of strange things show up. When we drag that net back in.
So join us next week to talk about Forrest Gump.
No, yeah, Forrest Gump is a great example the sort of film will never cover.
That is the anti weird house.
Yeah that is. That's the normal house cinema pick of the week. There, Weird House Cinema is going to continue to come out on Fridays and the Stuff to Blow Your Mind Feed Tuesdays and Thursdays will remain core episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind, so, you know, science and culture focused with maybe a little weird film thrown in there from time to time, but it won't be
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