(Originally released as Sūpā Jaiantsu – Jinkō Eisei to Jinrui no Hametsu, a.k.a. Super Giant – The Artificial Satellite and the Destruction of Humanity and The Satellite and the Extermination of Mankind, and Sūpā Jaiantsu – Uchūtei to Jinkō Eisei no Gekitotsu, a.k.a. Super Giant – The Spaceship and the Clash of the Artificial Satellite and Duel Between the Spaceship and the Satellite)
Starman returns!
I wrote about Starman a few posts back in my Atomic Rulers of the World discussion, so if you missed that, you should probably go back and read it by clicking on the link in the first part of this sentence or on the link to the right. I’ll wait.
Now that you’re all caught up to speed, we can talk about today’s Starman film, Attack from Space. Although it’s the second Starman film that’s popped up on this blog, it’s chronologically the third film in the series of new features compiled by Walter Manly from the string of Japanese theatrical films—not that this matters much, as they were all released to television in one batch, and there’s really no continuity between the four films. Still, because I am obsessed with useless bits of trivia, Attack from Space was made up of footage from the fifth (Super Giant: The Artificial Satellite and the Destruction of Humanity) and sixth (Super Giant: The Spaceship and the Clash of the Artificial Satellite) installments of the Japanese Super Giant film series. I doubt that these bits of knowledge will ever show up in a question on a Jeopardy! episode, but at least I’m prepared if they do.
In this one, Starman is once again sent to Earth to protect it. The baddies this time out are some Nazi-like nogoodniks from the Sapphire Planet who want to take over the world. I’m intrigued by the names of the planets in the series so far; Starman is sent by the leaders of the Emerald Planet to save the Earth, and the villains this go-round are from the Sapphire planet. I wonder if there’s a Diamond Planet out there, or a Ruby Planet? Might they have Cubic Zirconia moons? Unfortunately, we’ll probably never know the answers, as the other two Starman films feature villains from non-precious-stone-named planets.
The Sapphirians (which is the way that I’m going to spell their name, although the back of the DVD case from Something Weird/Image calls them the Superians, which doesn’t make much sense to me, and the blurb on the Internet Movie Database [IMDB] calls them the Spherions, which makes even less sense) have a spacecraft in orbit around the Earth that Starman stumbles across on his way to save the planet. Using his Globemeter (the wearable technology that looks like a wristwatch and that can detect the presence of nearby atomic weapons AND provide Starman the ability to fly through space AND translate any language instantaneously), Starman sees that the Sapphirian spacecraft has enough atomic weaponry to destroy the Earth in seconds. He sets about trying to disable it, but a meteor shower keeps him from completing this task, so he decides to try to tackle the Sapphirian problem from the Earth end of things instead.
Down on Earth, Dr. Yamanaka, who’s building his own spacecraft in his laboratory – to be used “for peaceful purposes,” the narrator informs us – finds that a part for his spaceship that was supposedly indestructible has failed. He sends his two kids to run down to the store to pick up a new one, but the store has just sold the last one to the customer right before them. Suspicious, they follow him, and he ends up kidnapping them, as he’s a Sapphirian agent! Using the children as a lure, the Sapphirians also kidnap Dr. Yamanaka, because they need him and his spaceship engine plans in order to work on their own spaceship. Of course, Starman is on the case, so he flies back out to the Sapphirian spaceship and destroys it. But wait! There’s an even bigger Sapphirian spaceship, the Sapphirian Supreme Headquarters (SSH) that he somehow missed seeing! Meanwhile, Dr. Yamanaka and his children are loaded onto yet another spacecraft which takes them to the SSH. The crew of the SSH notices that Starman is headed their way, so they fire four really big missiles at him. He dodges three of them, but the fourth knocks him down to the Death Star, which is a planet that’s pretty much all volcanos and flames, all the time.
Starman is absent from the film for the next 15-20 minutes, wherein the Sapphirians threaten Dr. Yamanaka and his kids ad nauseum, but then Starman shows up, unharmed, at the SSH and takes on ALL THE SAPPHIRIANS ON BOARD, all at once, for the remaining 18 minutes of the movie. Naturally, Dr. Yamanaka and his kids are saved, the Sapphirians are destroyed, and Starman has saved Earth once again.
Well, enough of my gabbing—you’re probably ready to watch Attack from Space already, aren’t you? Well, since all four of the Starman films have gone into the public domain, there’s no lack of copies of them floating around on the Internet. Here’s one from YouTube for ya:
And for those of you so inclined, YouTube user Kaiju Movies has posted the original Japanese versions of the two films that were edited together and dubbed to make Attack from Space. Again, these original Japanese version are only for those who really loved Attack from Space and/or are somewhat fluent in Japanese and/or are willing to play around with YouTube’s captioning controls enough to get a vague idea of what’s going on.
Here’s Part 5 of the original Japanese series, here called The Satellite and the Extermination of Mankind:
And here’s Part 6 of the original Japanese series, under the title Duel Between the Spaceship and the Satellite:
Up next: From the depths of the sea…a tidal wave of terror!