Warning from Space (1956)

Space Men Appear in Tokyo
Spacepeople Appear in Tokyo
The Cosmic Man Appears in Tokyo
The Mysterious Satellite
Unknown Satellite Over Tokyo
Uchûjin Tokyo ni arawaru

Cast:

Toyomi Karita is Hikari Aozora/Ginko
Keizo Kawasaki is Toru
Shozo Nanbu is Dr. Toro Isobe

What the box says:

The citizens of Tokyo panic when they see UFOs in the sky. The aliens are beign, however, and have come to warn of a meteor on a collision course with earth. As the meteor approaches the earth's atmosphere begins to heat up, and mankind must race to construct a weapon to destroy it.

Plot:

Starfish shaped aliens have a plan and must contact the Japanese scientist, Professor Kimura.

The most ridiculous looking aliens ever...

In Japan, life goes on like usual. Professor Kimura and a reporter talk about the increase spottings of flying saucers.

At the observatory, a flying saucer is spotted. Suddenly, the city is plagued with power blackouts.

Professor Kimura heads home and greets his daughter. The good scientist must have empirical evidence before he even contemplates anything about flying saucers. After spotting one saucer himself, he heads to the observatory for more data.

Newspaper montage ensues. Reporters question the astronomers after saucers are seen all over the world. Kimura wants to use a rocket top photograph the saucers.

That night, some Starfish aliens emerge from the water and d scare some sailors. Noh theater and drunken office workers kicking back ensues.

Drunken salary-men must dance and karoake Geisha chasing ends when another Starfish alien is spotted.

The rocket is readied for launch.

Later, the cops bring a scientist to a sample alien slime. At the observatory, the photos are studied.

Scientist guy checks with Kimura. A strange glowing ensues in the apartment that freaks out daughter when she spots a Starfish alien.

Another newspaper montage ensues. The World Congress has ordered all the nations to quit launching anything into space but will try to shoot down a saucer.

Suddenly, a dance number pops up out of nowhere.

Why does a science fiction movie need many dance routines? A Starfish alien appears and scares the lead dancer.

A saucer heads back to the alien satellite base. Humans consider the aliens as monsters. The new plan is for one of the Starfish aliens to transmorph into the duplicate of a human, even has a picture of the dance lady. The human then could get in touch with Kimura. Let the Starfish to human transfiguration machine ensue.

The scientists are on a break. The saucers have disappeared. Scientist man and Kimura’s daughter tare taking a boat ride and find a body in the lake. Let’s call her Star Dancer.

Back to the club which is doing the Ricky Richardo show at the Tropicana Club from I Love Lucy, dance lady faints when told about a woman who looks identical to her.

But Ricky, why can't I be in the show? The scientists will help the Star Dancer who fakes amnesia. Kimura offers to let her stay at his place.

Star Dancer contacts her superiors.

Tennis fu between scientist man and Star Dancer. She learns her superiors have sent another transformed agent to aid her. Later, a flock of Japanese schoolgirls swarm Star Dancer who disappears through a door.

Scientist examines Star Dancer’s fingerprints.

Star Dancer pays a visit to Matsuna. He is developing a formula for an explosive more powerful than A or H-bombs. She tears the formula up.

Later, Kimura and other scientists discuss how strange Star Dancer is and how could she understand Matsuna’s formula. They think she’s not human. Has no fingerprints and cellular material from her matches the alien slime.

Star Dancer appears. She explains how her planet is in the exact opposite orbit of Earth. They developed Matsuna’s formula. The aliens came to Earth to save it and their planet, Paira. A rogue planet from another galaxy will collide with Earth. They can use all of Earth’s nuclear weapons to alter the planet’s course?

The scientists warn people of the impending collision.

Idiot picnickers doubt the announcement.

Back at the observatory, the scientists hold a press conference. The World Congress has denied their petition. Kimura will go ahead and try to be as ready as possible. 15 more days until planet R will be visible to the naked eye.

Newspaper montage ensues.

Kimura gives another press conference and mentions Matsuna’s theoretical explosive which could be used.

Saito wants to but Matsuna’s formula.

Everyone is waiting for Planet R to approach. The calculations lead to the conclusion that Planet R will collide with Earth in 50 days. The World Congress will reconsider Japan’s proposal for using nuclear weapons

Panicked evacuation ensues.

Planet R is accelerating.

Saito has his lackeys kidnap Matsuna. Saito doesn’t believe in the Planet R collision but will get the formula at any cost.

Desert city ensues. Planet R is accelerating again and will hit Earth in 20 days. The World Congress finally approved the nuclear barrage.

The nukes are launched. Everyone waits and learns it didn’t move Planet R at all. Now, Planet R is 5 days away. Earth has been getting hotter. Animals keel over from the heat or hide in holes. Tidal waves destroy model cities.

Some of the shelters begin to get flooded.

Matsuna is still tied up.

Star Dancer teleports to the shelter. They’ll be able to find Matsuna who has a ring that has a radio transmitter. The aliens have the equipment ready but just need Matsuna’s formula.

Matsuna staggers into the shelter. The aliens have the missile ready. The final countdown sees the missile launched from the alien satellite base and blows up Planet R.

the animals return from their hiding places. The kids leave the shelter and celebrate.

Star Dancer returns to the base and returned to her Starfish alien form.

What I say:

I try to be informative and somewhat humorous. That sentence should have my ten of fans laughing like hyenas on nitrus oxide. Well on to a random bit of trivia. What was the first color Japanese science fiction movie? Could it have been a Godzilla movie? No. Could it have been a Gamera movie? No, Warning from Space was the first. Yes, this was the first color Japanese sci-fi movie.

Japan's entertainment industry is mainly known in America for the kaiju (giant monster) movies and anime from the b-movie genre fans. While Godzilla and Gamera movies are so widely known worldwide, the Japanese sci-fi movies from the 1960s are almost considered universally hokey. I don't mean that as an insult. Granted, a lot of those movies are goofy. However, every country has some of their own deranged movies from each decade in each genre. Warning from Space is goofy and hokey. At least, it doesn't try to revel in some sort of message.

The first dance number almost pops out of nowhere like the "Anything Goes" song and dance number at the beginning of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The second dance number had me thinking this movie was partially fianaced by Bollywood. If there were any more dance routines, I'd have sworn I was watching some sort of Bollywood movie. Does anyone know of any Bollywood movie with aliens trying to save humanity from a meteor?

What Japanese sci-fi movie would be complete without sweet model destruction of some sort? Sweet model destruction has to be one of my favorite parts of kaiju movies. No one could guess that with as many times as I've used with "sweet model destruction." I would hate to think of being psychoanalyzed for admitting watching cardboard building get demolished brings joy to be shriveled, inhuman heart...

Not the United Nations, but the World Congress. I'm leaving out the politics about ranting of the infamous one world government (Paranoid enough without thinking about political conspiracies). Though, I can't help but think the idea that Japan is asking to use nuclear weapons is at the very least an awfully strange idea. I almost expected Superman to toss a giant cargo net of nuclear warheads out of orbit into Planet R. Sorry, I'm starting to fuse Superman 4: the Quest for Peace into Warning From Space. No characters complain or even acknowledging about using nuclear weapons being used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Starfish aliens? Starfish aliens? At least, they're more creative than the aliens who were just guys with aluminum foil wrapped around giant helmets in some Godzilla movies or the mosts ridiculous infamous alines of all time: Robot Monster with a gorilla suited guy wearing a diving helmet with an antenna. At least Starfish aliens are better than just having aliens possess humans like in They Came From Beyond Space.

A meteor heading for Earth and a desperate plan is hatched to save the planet. While Michael Bay may have taken that with Armageddon with a massive budget and Aerosmith shredding their last microcopic bit of credability on the altar of movie soundtracks, meteors have been done in quite a few low budget sci-fi movies including Green Slime. For a movie that has a meteor heading for Earth, they sure keep that fact a secret for most of the movie. Rather than having that as a key part of the movie, dance numbers and random panic attacks from people who see the aliens.

A movie with spontaneous dance numbers and starfish aliens had to have been legally separated from reality probably longer than I. Yes, this is a goofy movie. Some movies just hit you at the right time. Warning From Space needed a giant Kaiju destroying a model city while line dancing to some 1980s pop music.

Quotable Dialogue
"Could they be some kind of secret missile?"
"I could eat a horse."
"Too much talk of monsters."
"Destroying this formula before it gets made."
"I just witnessed something uncanny."
"Science fiction, it's a lot of nonsense."
Morals of the Story
Starfish aliens are the highest frm of life in the universe.
UFOs scare fish away.
Fly fishing can catch Starfish aliens.
Japanese newspapers print their Extra editions in English.
the World Congress has the right to demand all nations quit launching satellites.
Amnesiacs can jump 10 feet into the air.
Dancers are normally flocked by Japanese schoolgirls.